Gathering of the Sidhe
by GeneticallyElvenGryffindor
Summary: Pixie and friends have gotten a bit older and have taken on new responsibilities. What does this mean for Pixie when old friendships start to go in new directions, once friends decide to make themselves known, and her job isn't what it seems?
1. Losing My Religion

AN: Hiya everyone! Welcome to the semi-sorta-sequel to the misadventure known as "On Fairy's Wings." I'm sure you can read this story on its own, without having read "On Fairy's Wings." The aforementioned story is, mostly, the back story to this misadventure. If you enjoy this story, please, feel free to read it though! Anyway, I promise that this story will have more misadventures in and out of the Matrix as well as some changes in the romance aspect of the story. Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys this little misadventure of mine. Please, please, please, feel free to leave me a review! I appreciate any suggestions or criticisms from anyone out there. I'm always looking to improve on what I write, especially on the romance aspect of this little story. It sort of crept in there and made itself at home so I'm not too sure about it. By the by, a great big thanks to everyone who read "On Fairy's Wings" and to everyone who reviewed it! All of you rock like a box of sock!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and in graduate school studying biology. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"That's me in the corner  
That's me in the spotlight…" (from "Losing my Religion" by R.E.M.)

Close to her nineteenth birthday- Her birthday in the Matrix and not in the Real World- the young female rebel felt she might have been one of the luckier people in Zion's military fleet. She worked on the _Nebuchadnezzar_ under the famous, or infamous depending on who you were talking to, Captain Morpheus. She trained with individuals like Trinity, Apoc, and Switch. Her practical medical training was nearly done with and she always had enough work to keep her busy.

When not on her ship, when she was back in Zion, the young woman had something like a family. There was the family that had adopted her when she was first freed from the Matrix. The family that had told her she was always welcomed in their home- or what passed for a home in Zion- no matter what was going on.

The young woman also had a family made up of her friends. Once upon a time, she might have called them allies but now they were her friends. They being, Aisling and her twin brother Adoh, Ngaio, and Chian. Then, of course, there was Wheeler. Wheeler was something like her best friend since they had a past from their days in the Matrix.

She didn't get to see either family as often as she liked, though, because they were all working in one way or another. She'd spoken to Wheeler a handful of times and that had helped her a bit. Still, she missed seeing them face to face.

Not that she ever regretted taking the job she had. No, the young woman greatly enjoyed her position on the _Nebuchadnezzar_. She felt like she was giving back in some small way. Helping people in the same why she'd been helped just after her fifteenth birthday.

More importantly, the young woman had gone into and out of the Matrix several times and had yet to run into an Agent of the system. She'd been chased by the police quite a few times but she'd never run into an agent.

As with nearly everything else in her world, the young woman had several working theories as to why she'd never run into an agent. Mostly she suspected that she wasn't really worth their times. Yes she knew that her being a freed mind and wandering through the Matrix made her a target but she wasn't on the same level as the Morpheuses and Trinities of the Real World.

If anything, she had been a small time hacker now working among a bunch of big names. A very small fish in a very large pond so to speak.

The young woman sat in the dusty basement of a once busy dance studio. The basement must have been some kind of office area because framed pictures of famous tap dancers stared at her from their spots on the walls. The images were yellow with time and age, dust covered and blurry in some places.

Actually there was a layer of dust on everything, settling on the boxes that were now being stored in the former dance studio and on the young woman sitting in the dark space. Her waist length braid was almost as dusty as everything else in the room. Boxes were piled to the low ceiling with only a small path cut through them. It was that small path that the young woman had used to get to her seat.

Tucked into a niche in the wall, was a wide desk. The desk had once been white but now it was grey with dust. The computer- the only new item in the room- sat in the center of the wide desk. It cast a sickly glow on the young woman and illuminated a vase of long dead roses that were on the desk.

The flowers gave the young woman the creeping willies, actually. More than the dark or the loneliness of the space around her.

It was difficult to even pick out the young woman sitting in the battered, rusty chair at the desk. She, herself, was like a shadowy wraith, dressed all in inky black. In a sort of ironic way, she was dressed in a flat black bodysuit with a high collar and a unitard that zipped up the front. It fit tight to her body but flared out at the legs, slightly covering the black boots she wore on her feet. Over her clothing, she wore a small leather jacket with several pockets.

A phone trilled in one of her pockets, breaking up the oppressive silence in the room and making the young woman jump. She hadn't expected the phone to ring so suddenly. If anything, she figured she was going to have to call in to let them know where she was and what was going on.

"Pixie," the young woman stated as she answered the ringing phone, confirming her identity even though she knew the people on the other end of the line knew who she was.

"I know you want to stay in but I'm reading some serious police activity around you," the tiny voice of Tank said, "Morpheus wants you to get going, Pixie."

"But I just told Eurisko I'd meet him," Pixie protested, a small hint of whining in her voice.

Eurisko- a twenty year old young man- was one of the many people being monitored just in case he started asking the right questions. For some strange reason, no matter who he spoke to, Eurisko was asking the right questions but looking for the wrong answers. That was until he started talking to a young, just starting out hacker calling herself "Shieldmaiden."

Of course, the young hacker was not starting out. If anything she knew more than Eurisko did about the nature of the Real World and the Matrix. "Shieldmaiden" was Pixie in disguise, speaking to Eurisko with a fake name in order to protect herself and the young man she was trying to guide.

Whatever Pixie had told the boy, it seemed to work wonders. All of a sudden, he was asking the right questions and looking for the answers in all the right places. Pixie had been told to try and get the boy to Morpheus so he could make the decision each and every one of the Free Minds in Zion had made.

She guessed that the decision would have to wait for another time. Morpheus wanted her back on the ship, in the relative safety of the craft she called home.

"Don't worry, Morpheus is working on that. You'd better get going, though. Your area is crawling with cops. Exit's on 21st and Crescent, old school office," Tank informed the young woman.

The line went dead, clicking off before Pixie could say anything else. In a paranoid sort of way, the young woman glanced around the room. It was almost as if she expected something to jump out of the shadows at her, arresting her or worse. When the room proved to be empty, she took off running through the maze of dust covered boxes.

Her booted feet retraced the steps she'd taken to enter the room, leaving a confusing muddle of prints on the dusty ground. Anyone who came in would know someone had been here and had left from the same place. Pixie made a mental note to tell Morpheus to let the rest of the fleet know to stay away from that particular place for a good long while.

Pixie kept running, darting here and there to get away from patrolling police officers. Though she was well aware of the fact that the shortest distance between two places was a straight line, the medic-in-training decided to take the more circuitous route to the exit. Her mind was focused on getting around the officers, outwitting and out smarting them so she could get back to her ship

The young woman knew she'd have to ask Morpheus what they were their next step was. There was still Eurisko to help out. They couldn't just leave him moldering in the Matrix now. They were committed to, at least, giving him the choice to get out now.

The address Tank had given the young woman belonged to an old school building. Like the dance studio, and many other things in this area, this school had closed its doors and sat in disuse and disrepair. Its red brick walls were lost under many coats of graffiti. Swear words and grotesque images covered the walls of the former institute of education.

Oddly enough and much to Pixie's surprise, old school was locked up tighter than a prison. The front door was chained shut, padlocked closed with a very formidable looking lock. She half expected the place to be wide open like the former dance studio she'd been working in.

There was no way for her to break the lock short of trying to shooting it off. Pixie wasn't fond of that idea. The noise it would make could bring the police down faster than she could jack out.

It seemed rather strange that Tank would send her to a land line in a place she couldn't enter. That defeated the whole purpose of sending her to such a place. Tank was rarely wrong when it came to locations so she couldn't chalk up her being sent here by accident.

This was where she was supposed to be. She just had to figure out how to get into the building before the police officers found her first.

"I need a way in. I need a way in," she mumbled, speaking to herself and glancing around the building for some inspiration.

Part of Pixie wished there was a flashing sign with the words "Enter Here" and an arrow pointing to a way in. Of course, that…flashy…sort of sign was not something conductive to the secrecy under which Zion's military fleet worked. That was a bit too glaringly obvious thus making it extremely dangerous.

Something like that was like a writing an invitation for an Agent to come pay a visit. Since defeating an Agent was a distinct impossibility for anyone in the rebellion- except for the person known as the "One" but he hadn't been found yet, according to Morpheus- that wasn't something you wanted to do. It was better to try and find other ways to get around the Agents that patrolled the Matrix.

As she fretted and tried to find a way into the building, something caught Pixie's brandy brown eyes. Generally, and like everyone else who went into and out of the Matrix, she wore sunglasses when in the Matrix but it was the dark of night so the shades were a bit superfluous. In all actuality, they were more of a hindrance at night than anything else.

Walking a few steps, Pixie noticed that the streetlight glinted off of the glass panes of a side door. With a half resigned sigh, Pixie pulled out her twin side arms and trotted over to the door. One of the panes of glass had been broken and the door jimmied open making it easy for Pixie to get into the building.

The medic-in-training wanted to smack herself upside the head for not noticing that fact sooner. This was the entrance Tank meant when he gave her the address. Pixie pushed the door open, leaning into it with one of her boney shoulders. It opened with a soft creak, the moan of a door jamb that had seen much use and was wearing out.

Pixie entered the building, broken glass crunching under her feet. The door shut behind her with a muted click, sending a chill through her. It was dark in the once school, but the young woman could make out several stairwells and doorways.

From what Pixie could tell, she was on the first floor of the building. Someplace on this floor was an office and, in that office, a telephone. At least she hoped that was the case.

"This is way too easy," the young woman mumbled as her eyes glanced around her desolate surroundings and ears listened for the tell-tale sound of a ringing phone.

It took a moment but Pixie, finally, heard one of the best sounds in the world. In her opinion, anyway.

The shrill sound of a ringing phone, loudly, split the air. The fact it was so loud was a sign indicating that it wasn't all that far off. A smile crossed Pixie's face at the closeness of the sound. If she made a break for it, threw caution to the wind, she could be home before she knew it.

Pixie was preparing to run when another sound intruded Pixie's little world, covering up the welcome ringing of the phone. This sound was different and distinctly unwelcome under the circumstances. It sounded like boots, boots marching along the glass and debris littered floor.

"This isn't good," Pixie mumbled, around an almost sad sounding sigh, "not good at all."

She watched, waiting with baited breath to see what was walking along the building. Almost of their own accord, the young woman's hands reached into her jacket and removed the weapons- twin hand guns, one for each hand- she carried with her.

Pixie had a strong dislike for firearms but she knew she had to carry them for her own safety. She even knew how to use them, thanks to a few downloads and lessons on her ship, but that didn't mean she had to like it.

The young woman crouched in the darkness, hoping that she was just shadowy enough so that the owner of the boots passed her by. She was fairly shaking by the time the owner of the boots swung his flashlight in her direction. She averted her eyes as the bright beam caught her square on in the face.

Pixie frowned, sighing deeply. She knew she was in trouble. Very, very big trouble. More trouble than she'd ever been in because there was no one here to back her up. The young woman was well and truly alone and stuck.

"Hold it right there, kid. This is private property, you're not supposed to be here," overweight security guard informed Pixie, in a rather harsh tone.

The guard, a former police officer who had left the police force after a fight with a superior, had been assigned to watching the abandoned building, after a series of break-ins. Several incidents of darkly dressed figures moving into and out of the building had been reported by nearly everyone in the surrounding homes.

Since the building wasn't in the best part of the neighborhood, the calls went unheeded for a very long time. Attention was finally paid to it when it was discovered the upper floors of the building were being used by a local gang of street thugs. Now there was someone patrolling the building every night.

The officer looked like he was about to say something else but a surprised look crossed his face. He'd spotted the weapons the young girl held in her hands.

"Drop your weapons, kid. I'm not going to hurt you," the officer ordered, his tone now soft and almost placating.

He really didn't want any trouble and Pixie was more than willing not to give him any. He could try to arrest her but the medic-in-training figured she could just knock him out, rendering him temporarily unconscious and get to the phone that was still ringing in the distance.

Pixie, slowly, put her weapons down, showing the officer than her hands were empty. It was her way of assuring him that she was absolutely no threat whatsoever. She didn't want any trouble….really.

Then something strange but, at the same time frighteningly fascinating, began to happen. Like melting wax, the security guard's face and body began to change. Navy blue uniform was, ever so slowly, replaced with a black and white suit.

It took all of a moment for Pixie to recognize what was happening to the poor man. The security guard was turning into an Agent. His body was being taken over by one of the sentient programs that protected the Matrix and he was becoming something each and every member of the Resistance feared.

Thinking fast and acting on instincts she didn't even know she had, Pixie reached down and snapped up one of her weapons. Twice she fired in rapid succession before the transformation could be completed. The security guard, now back in his regular uniform, fell to the ground with a sickening thud. The same sort of thud was made by Pixie's stomach as it seemed to his the ground.

Fear and adrenaline driving her- two very powerful motivators to say the least- Pixie darted in the general direction of the sound of the telephone. She wasn't even really aware of what she was doing as badly shaking hand lifted the receiver to her ear.

The receiver fell to the ground a moment later, the plaintive wail of the dial tone echoing throughout the building.

AN: I thought some of you might be interested in the meanings behind some of the names I used in this and in "On Fairy's Wings." There are only a few I won't give you meanings for because, well, that'll spoil things later. Anywho, here are some of the names and their meanings (and places of origin).

Aisling-"dream" or "vision" in Irish Gaelic

Adoh- a variation on the name Aodh, which means "fire" in old Irish

Ngaio- "clever" in Maori

Conall- "strong wolf" in Gaelic

Eurisko- "I discover things" in Greek


	2. Flagpole Sitta

AN: Hiya Everyone! Welcome back to the latest installment of the misadventures of a girl named after a mythical creature, a scruffy left handed former pitcher, and a boy who's named after a bird but is more reptile than anything else. First off, I hope everyone had a very happy Thanksgiving! The semester's ending for me which is equal parts a good and a bad thing. It's a good thing since that means my sister's semester will be ending too so I won't have to do her work for her but, at the same time, it's a bad thing because she has five papers to write. I wind up doing them on top of my own work! I wish everyone luck in their own end of the semester work! Anywho, thanks to everyone who read this little misadventure and thanks again to everyone who reviewed. Please let me know what you think! I'm always open to any comments or criticisms!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and in graduate school studying biology. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"I had visions, I was in them,  
I was looking into the mirror  
To see a little bit clearer  
The rottenness and evil in me…" (From "Flagpole Sitta" by Harvey Danger)

As soon as Pixie was freed from the confines of her chair, she bolted from the Core of the ship. There were tears running down her face but Pixie made no effort to stop them. She was more determined to get out of the room and away from everyone else.

"What's wrong with her?" Hawk asked, as he headed into the Core watching Pixie beat a hasty retreat from the space.

"She just had a run in with an agent," someone in the room answered, "She's lucky she got out in one piece. I didn't think Pixie was that crazy about using those weapons we programmed for her."

Hawk looked a bit baffled as his mind tried to wrap itself around what he was being told. It always took him a few moments to figure out what someone was saying when they were using carefully worded subtext. Hawk was- had always been- more of a straight forward type of person. The kind of person who liked when people spoke plainly.

"She killed someone," Hawk declared, once he figured out what was being said and wrapping an arm around his stomach as he began to laugh, "and she's acting like that. What a cry baby! I thought you had to be tough to do this job."

Calming down a bit, he added, "I guess not if scaredy cats like her can do the job."

It was something every newbie on every ship had to go through. A ritual or a rite of passage of sorts. A trial by fire that saw one stare the inevitable in the face and manage to turn away.

Hawk had his trial, so to speak, several weeks prior. It was just a simple trip into the Matrix to do some routine scouting that had gone horribly wrong. In order to save himself- as was usually the case- he had to sacrifice the lives of a handful of police officers. He hadn't been bothered by it at all, though, claiming that it was just part of the job.

"She's not going to sleep tonight," Tank noted, swiveling his chair around from the screens it usually faced.

"Who does, though?" Dozer commented, directing the comment more towards his younger brother than to Hawk.

"I did!" Hawk cut in, sounding more than a little proud of himself.

Though he was still relatively new to the ship, Hawk had decided he was the toughest man on the craft. Tougher than the two operators standing before him and, certainly, tougher than Morpheus. Sure he had yet to soundly defeat Morpheus or any other man on the ship for that matter, but he figured his point was still valid. At least, in his head, his point was valid. In everyone else's estimation, however, things were just a bit different to say the least.

Despite the fact, he had been considered himself a good friend of Pixie's at some point in their lives, Hawk had little pity for her now. Pixie had wanted to be freed, wanted to part of this crew, and to be given just as much responsibility as the others. She wanted to be just like everyone else even though he knew she wasn't strong enough.

One risk of that job was the taking of a life. Hawk figured that, because his targets were still attached to the giant mainframe that was the matrix, they were cannon fodder, worthless targets. It hadn't bothered him in the least and he figured Pixie was just being overly sensitive. Just gave more credence to the fact he thought she wasn't strong enough by half to do this job.

"And you weren't bothered by the Oracle but she was. Everyone takes these things differently," Dozer informed Hawk.

"Shouldn't someone go talk to her or something?" Tank asked, questioning his older brother.

"Someone will," Dozer assured his brother, "but it's better we leave her alone for a while. Give her time to process what happened."

Like an ill behaved child who'd gotten into trouble with their parents, Pixie had, immediately gone to her room. It was the only place on the entire ship where she knew she'd get some measure of privacy. As long as she kept her door closed, no one would bother her.

Well, rationally, she knew someone was going to, eventually, come looking for her but the young woman decided that a measure of privacy was better than none at all. At least she could be alone for now and that's what she wanted.

Pixie lay on her small bunk, curled up facing the wall. She'd cried her eyes out, leaving them red and raw looking. She couldn't cry anymore, though, or, at least, it felt that way to her. There were no more tears to be had and that made Pixie feel worse. She wanted to cry in the worst way. It felt like it was the right thing to do, given what she'd just done.

Part of her knew it was his life or hers and she had just made the rational choice. Kill or be killed---one of the bases of evolution, of her rational sciences. The stronger one was always the one to survive, the one who was able to pass on their genes to the next generation. Nature was cruel and harsh that way. She'd just figured that, as a member of the "higher species," they'd have gotten past that sort of thing. Pixie guessed she was wrong in that respect.

Another part of her, the part that was still very much a frightened child, was appalled at her actions. Pixie was disgusted with herself and with what she'd done inside the Matrix. There was just something…well…wrong about it.

The Oracle had told her that her hands were meant to heal- which made some sense because she was a medic and the purpose of a medic was to heal- but they could be used for other things. Things she was just going to have to come to terms with. Pixie guessed this was one of those things. Maybe it was the only thing she was supposed to come to terms with but the dark haired medic-in-training wasn't sure.

Pixie had tried to rationalize what she had done, in between the tears. She tried to force herself to understand that she wasn't really harming a person. She was harming an avatar, a mental projection of a person created by the Matrix. Putting that way made it seem cold though and that just made Pixie feel worse. True, she could be frighteningly clinical when she needed to be but, right now, that felt wrong to her.

Behind that avatar, just like the residual self image she wore, so to speak when she entered the Matrix, was a person. All be it a person still trapped, unknowing of how he truly existed, but a person nonetheless. Pixie wondered if he had a family, a life outside of work, someone who was going to be told that their husband or their father or their son was never going to come home. Pixie feverently hoped not because she didn't want to be responsible for creating more orphan children. She'd been on when she'd been in the Matrix so she knew what that felt like.

Sighing, Pixie tried to curl herself up into a smaller ball and force herself to sleep. Maybe the blissful darkness of slumber would make her feel better. Maybe she'd just realize this was all one big bad dream.

When Pixie hadn't appeared by the end of what passed for dinner on the ship, Morpheus had requested someone go check on her. The Captain was more than a little worried about the young woman. He'd heard that she'd been particularly broken up about what had happened. At least it seemed that way from the scant few moments the others on the ship had seen her.

Still, broken up or not, Morpheus had figured Pixie would have come back to join the rest of the crew by now. It wasn't like her to skip out on other things she had to do. If anything, Pixie was proving herself to be extremely responsible and reliable. As both her Captain and just someone who was worried about her well being, the last thing Morpheus wanted was for Pixie to do something rash and harm herself.

For all of a moment Morpheus thought of sending Mouse or Hawk to go and talk to Pixie. He, quickly, nixed that idea. The two boys, though they were the same age as Pixie, would be of little help to her now. They weren't experienced enough to deal with something like this. After all, they had just gone through the same thing…just not to this degree.

The rest of his crew was older and far more experienced in this respect but it was still a difficult decision to make. Since this was Pixie he was considering, there was really only one choice for him to make.

"Trinity," Morpheus stated, turning to his second-in-command, "could you go and check on Pixie? No one has seen her since she returned from the Matrix."

Hawk and Mouse- Well, Hawk more than Mouse- gawked at Morpheus like he was crazy. Trinity was definitely not the person he'd pick to go and talk to Pixie.

"How about I go instead? I'm not as scary as she is," Hawk cut in, getting up and heading for the door, "and it's obvious that Pixie's already frightened. No one wants to make that worse."

"I think that Trinity would understand this situation infinitely better than you do, Hawk," Morpheus pointed out, giving the younger male a cold stare.

It went unspoken- Though there were a few individuals who were thinking it- that they wanted Pixie out of her room and feeling, reasonably, better. Sending Hawk was asking for more trouble. It was assumed that he would say things that made her feel worse.

Trinity, though she didn't completely understand why Morpheus was sending her to talk to Pixie, nodded and left the mess hall. Pixie's room wasn't exactly a long distance from the mess hall since the hovercraft they all called home was only so big.

The door to the medic-in-training's quarters was closed, as it had been since she'd come out of the Matrix. It was almost like sticking a great big, flashing "Stay Out" sign on the door. Pixie didn't want any company at the moment.

Banging on the door, the older female called, "Pixie, open the door. Morpheus sent me to talk to you."

There was dead silence in the hallway for several minutes. It was obvious that either Pixie hadn't heard her- entirely likely since the doors were relatively heavy- or she had heard Trinity and she was just ignoring her. The fact Pixie might have been asleep crossed Trinity's mind as well. She could have cried herself to sleep like an upset child in the Matrix.

There was only one way to find out what was going on with the young medic-in-training.

Trinity banged on the door, harder this time. Again not receiving a response from Pixie, the older rebel pushed the door open. Pixie, for all intents and purposes, looked to be asleep but Trinity had a very strong feeling that Pixie wasn't sleeping.

The first kill was always the hardest on most people. Someone in Zion- One of those individuals who fancied themselves a philosopher- said that it stripped the innocence and idealism away from the job. Doing what Pixie had just done removed all pretense and glamour from what they were doing. Made the fact that this was a war all too real.

Sitting down at the foot of Pixie's bed, Trinity pointed out, "I know you're not asleep. Your eyes are open."

The young rebel didn't move or make a sound. The only indication that she was alive was the fact she was breathing. Trinity raised an eyebrow at the young woman's actions. Pixie, who had proven to be very good at following was orders, was actively choosing to ignore her.

"You're going to have to talk to someone, Pix. This is not something you're going to be able to deal with yourself. I've seen this drive people out of their minds," Trinity informed the young woman, speaking very quietly.

She'd been about Pixie's age when it had happened her. When she chose life over an inevitable death at the hands of the Agents. It seemed like a whole other lifetime ago, now, but Trinity recalled what the person who'd helped her said to her.

She'd said that you had to talk about what happened. No matter how self-sufficient you thought you were, this was not something you could deal with alone. You had to talk to someone who understood what had gone on. Someone who had been there him or herself. It was the only way to no lose your mind or wind up beating yourself up out of guilt.

Pixie rolled away from the wall she'd been facing. She pushed herself up and scooted back so that she could lean against the wall and pulled her knees into her chest. Rubbing her red eyes, she rested her head on her knees.

"I should have ran," Pixie croaked, her voice more than a little ragged from her crying, "I shouldn't have fired."

Trinity shook her head, truly feeling sorry for Pixie. The last person she had seen this upset after their trial by fire, so to speak, had left their post and become a shopkeeper in Zion or something to that effect. Needless to say they never wanted to set foot inside a ship again.

"You did what you had to do. If I were in your boots, I would have made the same decision. As it stands, you were lucky to get those shots off. That was a close call with an Agent, Pixie. You should be proud of yourself that you made it out alive," Trinity said.

"But I still should have ran. I never should have fired," Pixie repeated with a shake of her head.

"If the system managed to finish transforming that police officer into an Agent, you wouldn't have been able to escape. You did what you had to do to keep yourself alive," the older rebel informed her younger counterpart.

"Still, I'm a medic. I'm supposed to take care of life, not take it away. I spend my time here keeping you guys alive," Pixie stated.

That was the crux of her problem. She hadn't found a way to reconcile her medical training with her actions. That was compounding her guilt. She'd taken on the role of medic- Even if she was still in training- with ease. She, like her fellow would be medics and doctors, recited the traditional Hippocratic Oath on the day of their graduation from the Academy.

Pixie took a small measure of pleasure and pride from the fact she was able to help save lives. Never in a million years did she ever consider what it would be like to take one. It was a hard thing to think about when one was charged with persevering life.

"I hate to tell you but, out there, you're not just a medic. The same way Mouse isn't just a programmer. Out there, you're a Resistance Fighter. You're going to have to face situations like the one you were just in time and time again. It's something you're just going to have to come to terms with," Trinity explained.

Pixie weighed the older rebel's words, rubbing at her eyes again. It made a certain sort of sense to her. A strange sort of sense but, then, Pixie might have been guilty of faulty logic. She was going to have to come to terms with her dual roles, just as the Oracle had told her, if she wanted to keep her job. Since Pixie wanted to do just that, she knew what she was going to have to do.

Didn't mean she was going to have to like it. It was just something she was going to have to deal with, something she was going to have to learn to live with.

"Is it going to get better?" she asked, sounding like a very small child who wanted to be reassured.

"What do you mean by better?" Trinity countered, slightly confused by the question.

Pixie shrugged, searching for the right word. She knew what she wanted to ask but she was having trouble finding the correct word. Her mind felt slow and sort of addled at the moment. Probably from the combination of adrenaline let down and stress.

Biting her lower lip for a moment as her mind fished out what she wanted to ask, Pixie questioned, "Maybe 'better' isn't the right word. Is it going to get any easier?"

"Maybe not the next time or the time after that," Trinity, honestly, answered, "but it does get easier. You won't feel as guilty eventually. It'll just be like part of the job."

"But isn't that a bad thing?" Pixie wanted to know, concerned.

Though she hated feeling as miserable as she was feeling now, Pixie still wanted to feel a bit of guilt about what she knew she had to do. The young woman figured that, if she didn't, she was really, and truly a monster.

Trinity shrugged and said, "I try not to think about it. Maybe, if we survive all of this, I'll think about it. Until then, you, like me have a job to do. Do you still want to do this job?"

Pixie nodded to show she understood and that she still wanted her job. She wasn't exactly feeling better about what had transpired but she was feeling no worse either. All she knew was that she was going to have make do in her situation if she wanted to keep her job.

"Feeling any better?" Trinity questioned, after Pixie had gone strangely still and quiet.

The young rebel shrugged, unsure of how she was feeling. The only thing she knew for sure was that she was starving. Her stomach growling like some sort of angry beast attested to that fact.

"I'm hungry," she commented, in an off handed way.

Pixie could recall the last time she ate something. Ate being a very subjective term for she wasn't sure what one did with the goop they had on the ship. The preverbal jury was still out on whether or not you ate or drank the protein based substance.

"Good sign," Trinity added, "trust me. Get something to eat, then try to get some rest. I know you're probably not up for it, but you're going to have to go back in tomorrow. Someone needs to make that pick up and Eurisko only seems to come when you call."

Pixie knew she was going to have to go back into the Matrix. It was best that it was sooner rather than later. Like falling of a horse or a bicycle- Neither one something Pixie had ever ridden during her Matrix days because she'd been too sickly- it was best just to get right back on and try again.

"Thanks," she mumbled, not quite sure what to say.

"Don't mention it," Trinity replied, getting up and heading for the door, "You have to talk to someone at some point. You're too sharp a mind for us to lose, Pix."

Pixie only managed a very pale blush at the complement she'd just been given. As the door to her room closed, Pixie slumped against the wall and sighed. It had been a very long day. All she wanted was to get something in her stomach so it would stop growling and, maybe, try and get some rest.

Tomorrow was a new day.


	3. Shine

AN: Hey everyone! I sincerely apologize for the fact I haven't updated this story in quite some time. It was just that I was thrown into a situation that I had little control over. See, my sister decided to dump her five end of the semester term papers- All of them were between ten and twenty pages- on me in order to have more time for her to plan her twenty-first birthday party and go out with her friends. This was on top of the paper and two presentations I had to do for my classes. The funny thing was our mother saw nothing wrong with me having to do my sister's homework instead of my sister, actually, doing it herself. At least the semester's over now, so there are no papers hanging over my head. I'm going to try and get back to updating and everything again. I apologize again and thank everyone who's reading this for their patience. Please, let me know what you think of my little misadventure by leaving me a review! I greatly appreciate anything anyone has to say…good, bad, or indifferent.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and in graduate school studying biology. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"Hey butterfly open up your weary eyes, and realize it's a trip we're taking.  
And the world will turn around again.  
And your shattered heart is going to mend.  
In the end…." (From "Shine" by Clay Aiken)

There were always two kinds of people in the universe, it seemed. There were those who always, no matter what the circumstances, did their jobs. Sick, injured, hurt, or any other condition, they were at their position doing whatever job they were supposed to do.

Then there were those who looked for any excuse not to work. If they could come up with an excuse- no matter how implausible the excuse might seem- to get out of working, they would. They were the types of people who owned medical dictionaries and lived by the idea that if a disease had more than four syllables you couldn't prove they didn't have it.

Wrapped in the blanked from her room, which was barely helping to stave off the chill she was feeling, Pixie sat at the Operator's console. It was an inhuman hour of the night and she'd already been excused from doing her normal shifts but Pixie had put up some resistance to being excused from doing work. Despite the fact she still wasn't feeling right, lingering guilt still wreaking havoc with her mind, she had opted to take her turn on watch.

Her stubborn instance that she could work, however, might not have been the brightest of Pixie's idea. Sitting in the Core, colder than she normally felt, it felt like the day was never, ever going to end. She had figured that if she focused on work, her mind and the guilt she was still feeling would leave her alone. The young woman just never banked on the fact that it might stretch an already long day out further.

Pixie sighed, her concentration wandering away from the task at hand. It was taking more than a small mental effort to keep her mind in one place. An extremely unusual occurrence for the medic-in-training who was noted for her ability to concentrate on a task.

This time though, her wandering attention seemed to be exactly what the situation called for. Near where her elbow should be- She was sitting in a ball on the chair, threadbare blanket wrapped around her entire body- a red light was flashing. It took Pixie a moment to realize what was going on. Someone was trying to get in contact with the ship she was stationed on.

She slipped the Operator's headset on, adjusting it so it fit properly on her head, and allowed the channel between the craft she was on and the one trying to get in contact with it to open. Given the time of night, Pixie was exactly sure who might try to get in contact with the ship she called home.

"_Nebuchadnezzar_ here, Pixie speaking," she, softly, stated, identifying herself for the benefit of whoever was on the other end of the line.

She was working by rote, doing what she'd been told to do should another craft contact the one she worked on. Sometimes, she put her own personality into the greeting but, at the moment, she didn't really feel like it. It just seemed a whole lot easier to work by rote now. Allow parts of her brain to rest, so to speak, so she could get through her shift.

"Hold please," came the gravelly voice of an individual Pixie didn't recognize on the other end.

It wasn't the standard, acceptable response and that got Pixie interested. It drew her attention in and got her to start thinking. From the other end of the line, the medic-in-training heard a great deal of incoherent, from her point of hearing, mumbling and the banging of feet mixed with the rustling of clothing. She guessed that, maybe, the person on the other end of the line had to go or was allowing someone else access the line.

The sounds ended, though, just as quickly as they'd begun. Whatever was going on had played itself out on the other end of the line.

"Guess who?" asked a new voice.

This voice wasn't sand paper rough. Actually, it was tinged by a very slight Texan drawl. The drawl wasn't recognizable unless one knew it was there. This voice was a voice Pixie recognized so her ear was attuned to that particular accent. Though realization came slowly, her ear let her know who, exactly, she was talking to.

"Wheeler!" she quietly exclaimed, as realization set in, "How'd you know I'd be up?"

She punched a few buttons, hoping he was doing the same on his end. Sure enough, the screen off her right shoulder came up with an image of her friend. It seemed like an age since she'd last spoken to the scruffy blond young man, even longer since they'd actually seen each other face to face.

Though she was still feeling badly, Wheeler's voice brought a small smile to her face. For whatever reason, hearing him made her feel better. Pixie guessed that it had something to do with the fact she hadn't seen him face to face for some time. After all, the last time she was in Zion his ship- the _Shatterpoint_- was still out and about. Pixie had been able to spend some time hanging around with Aisling, Adoh, and Ngaio but Wheeler, much to her dismay, had been absent.

"One of the times we talked, you gave me your, as you called it, roundabout schedule. I was just hoping that Captain Morpheus stuck to that schedule. I guess he did," Wheeler answered, a small hint of pride in his voice because he'd gotten luck and caught Pixie keeping watch.

Pixie's smile widened just a fraction, feeling sheepish for forgetting that she'd told Wheeler when he'd most likely be able to contact her. Then, again, when she was around Wheeler, she tended to forget many things. She had no idea why that happened to her- why she'd forget things or, suddenly, find herself feeling very giddy or wearing a smile- so Pixie tried to understand it, rationalize it as best she could. It was still a work in progress, however, since she couldn't easily figure out the answer.

"I'm afraid, I'm not going to be very good company today," Pixie informed her friend, giving him fair warning before the conversation went on any further.

She knew that Wheeler was taking a chance talking to her now. If she remembered correctly, it was not Wheeler's turn to be on watch. His watches were usually just after hers ended. Sometimes they intersected- the start of his took place around the middle of hers- but today was not one of those days. For some reason, he'd gone out of his way to talk to her today.

"What happened? Did Hawk say something to you?" Wheeler questioned in rapid succession, sounding more than a little concerned concerned.

When it came to Pixie, Wheeler had an extremely protective streak, something like the streak he had back in the Matrix where his little brother Arthur was concerned. The young man really did wish he could be on the _Nebuchadnezzar _just to make sure Hawk- who Wheeler strongly disliked since that incident back in Zion's Academy- didn't do or say anything to Pixie that might be considered the least bit offensive.

Wheeler wasn't the type to, immediately, jump into a fight for any old reason but he did value those he held near and dear to him. Anyone that he considered a friend or a member of his family, really. If anyone dared to hurt, with actions or words, people that fell into those categories, well, Wheeler might be inclined to have words with them. If they didn't listen and kept doing whatever it was they were doing, then he might take other action. Still, he didn't spoil for fights or anything like that. He just didn't like the idea of someone hurting his friends, especially Pixie.

"No….it wasn't Hawk this time," Pixie answered with a shake of her head, "I, really, haven't seem much of him today."

"Then why so glum, Pix?" he wanted to know, seemingly trying to scrutinize her face through the barrier between them.

With a heavy sigh, Pixie gave her friend a shortened version of what had happened to her that day, from her conversation with a potential called Eurisko to the little incident that led to her to taking the life of a police officer. She mentioned the conversation that she'd had with Trinity but didn't go into any details about it. The details seemed like something that should stay on her own ship.

"I wasn't happy after the first time, either," Wheeler said, in a serious voice, "I spent the entire night talking to Luminari. I think she might have stayed in my room- sitting on the floor I think- the entire night just in case I woke up. I'm sorry, though, I know that this must be harder for you because of your medical training."

To Wheeler, his words sounded horribly clichéd and trite but he couldn't, at that exact moment, find words to use that sounded any better. What the young man wanted to do was hug Pixie. He couldn't explain why since he'd never hugged Pixie before but he wanted to. Still, that wasn't possible and words weren't cutting it either. Wheeler wasn't exactly sure what he wanted to do or what he could say to make it any better for Pixie and that made him feel worse about it.

He was her friend- and, since she used the word "friend" instead of "ally" he knew Pixie was being serious- and he could do nothing to help her feel better. At least, nothing he could think of at the moment, anyway.

"I feel bad because I believe I could have gotten away from this guy. I'm faster than that," she commented.

With a hollow sounding laugh, she added, "You're right. The whole medic thing is making it worse. I mean I signed up to protect people. I guess I kinda knew it was going to come down to this someday but…I don't know. I just figured that I had to protect life instead of taking it. I really could have gotten away."

Pixie saw the thoughtful expression on Wheeler's face. He was thinking about what he wanted to say next, maybe trying to find something he thought was better to say to her.

Suddenly, Wheeler's expression changed. It was almost like a light went on in his head. He'd come to some realization or figured something out.

"I know this sounds mean but you don't know that you would have gotten away from that cop. He was turning into an Agent and we both know stories about what Agents can do to people like us. If anything, don't you remember the story of what Agents did to Aisling and Adoh's father," Wheeler, carefully, admonished.

Giving her a gentle smile, so she knew he wasn't angry with her or anything like that, Wheeler continued, "I know you feel bad but think of all the people in Zion, people you actually know and who actually know the real you, that would have missed you if it had been you instead of that cop. Rain and Torrent would be out a daughter and Eli a big sister. Aisling and Ngaio would be missing the third member of their little trio. Adoh wouldn't have someone to make jokes with. Chian wouldn't have someone to treat like a wayward little sister and I...well...I'd be out you."

It was strange, towards the end of his pronouncement; Wheeler's seemed to have trouble speaking. He started talking slowly, tripping over his words. It was almost as if he was losing confidence in what he was saying.

Pixie was about to say something but Wheeler's words decided to replay themselves in her mind. She puzzled over them for a moment as if hearing them for the first time. He couldn't have said what she thought he'd said. She had to have heard him incorrectly.

"What do you mean, I'd be out you?" she questioned, feeling a blush creep into her cheeks even as she broached the question.

"Um...nothing," Wheeler stammered, trying to keep his cool even as his ears started to turn a pale shade of pink, "My point is you're very important to a lot of people. Losing you would have made a lot of people very unhappy."

"But, what if that guy was important to someone?" Pixie questioned, quickly thinking of a way to change the topic despite the fact she was blushing and it was chasing away the chill she'd been feeling.

"Luminari told me, when I asked her a question like that, that I should try not to think of those connections as real because the people were never physically meeting.

Because they were never meeting in the flesh, the connections weren't real. The only real connections made in the Matrix are the ones made between hackers and rebels since the rebels were real. I don't know why but it made sense to me," Wheeler answered, repeating by rote what the older female on his ship had told him.

Pixie was inclined to agree, only to make herself feel better. It was easier to think of herself and all those who made their homes in Zion as real because they could talk to each other and they were really talking to one another. They could hold hands, hug, and kiss and actually be doing so. In there, in the Matrix, bodies never actually touched one another. It was just an image. A very good image, with real implications, but an image nonetheless.

"It kind of makes sense," Pixie responded, "in a strange sot of way."

Wheeler shrugged and commented, "It made me feel better so I've been sticking by that theory."

"No, it really makes some kind of sense. It's easier, I guess, to think that way," Pixie added.

Before Wheeler could say anything more, the gravelly voice returned.

"Mace's coming, get going," said the gravelly voice, "Unless you don't want to go into the Matrix for the next few weeks."

"Look, Elan just let me on to talk to you. If Mace catches me, there'll be problems," Wheeler blurted, "He doesn't like us mucking around with his equipment, even though we all work on the ship together."

An unruly haired figure appeared over Wheeler's shoulder, giving Pixie a sly smile. Apparently that was Elan, the Operator on the _Shatterpoint_. She gave him a small smile in return, not wanting to seem rude.

"Yeah, I'm supposed to be code watching, not taking to you. I don't think Morpheus would be all that pleased to catch me," Pixie retorted, "We don't want anymore Agents finding Eurisko before we get him out of there."

"I hope you feel better, Pix. I don't want you miserable," Wheeler commented, speaking quickly now.

"I'm better now, I think. Thanks to your sage advice," Pixie retorted.

The two exchanged farewells and logged off, the screen returning to its display of green code. Pixie was, once again, left alone with the semi-silent ship and her thoughts. She could not explain why but talking to Wheeler had made her feel better. It had chased away many of the fears she had been feeling. Wheeler had always been a good listener, even when he was just a name on a screen back when they were younger. She felt like she could trust him, that he wouldn't have minded that she was a sickly kid with big glasses.

Things were slightly different now, considering the fact she was no longer sickly and glasses were not something she had to deal with. His comment about being out her still bothered him a bit as she was not quite sure what he had meant.

She had always considered him the closet of her friends, the one she could confide in and cry on, but she was not sure how he saw her. Maybe, if their conversation was any indication, he saw her in the same way. They were just close friends who helped each other.

Pixie's wandering mind went back to the screens around her, feeling strangely better now that she'd talked to Wheeler. Like any good friend- at least she figured it was like any good friend- would, he'd stepped up to the plate and helped her feel better.

Maybe it was best she'd survived, after all.


	4. Working for the Weekend

AN: I don't think my computer likes me all that much. At the moment, I'm having problems staying online. This computer of mine has been nothing but problems since day one but you can't convince my father of that. He keeps taking it to be repaired and shelling out more and more money to get it "fixed." Of course, that doesn't always work out and it's back in the shop a few weeks later with a new problem. I figure we need a new computer. It's only a matter of time before someone else realizes it as well. Anywho, I hope everyone else is having a good time doing whatever it is all of you are doing! Being on vacation's alright but I'm starting to miss being in school. At least school work kept me busy…my own anyway. My sister's school work, well, that's a horse of a different color. Thanks to everyone who's out there reading this! I really do appreciate it. All of you are the best and you make typing this strange little misadventure up worth it! I'm always truly surprised to discover that people read anything I write.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and in graduate school studying biology. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"Everyone's watching, to see what you will do  
Everyone's looking at you, oh  
Everyone's wondering, will you come out tonight  
Everyone's trying to get it right, get it right" (From "Working for the Weekend" by Loverboy)

A lone figure crouched in the darkness of a rooftop. She waited in the shadows, almost becoming one with them. That came part and parcel with the whole working at night and wearing black clothing on the job. That and the fact the figure was as still as humanly possible.

She only moved when she needed to shift her slight weight. Sitting in a catcher's crouch in boots for quite a while wasn't the brightest thing to do but she really did want to remain unseen. Though her hair was dark and braided down her back, her skin was pale looking. She was afraid that someone- or something- with good vision might be able to spot her.

That fear, as well as other silly fears, in place, she decided the best way to stay safe was to hunker down in the shadows. Make herself as small a target as possible. If that meant she had to crouch in her boots- not the most comfortable position given her footwear. Sitting in a crouch in her bare feet was actually something she enjoyed doing. - then she was alright with it.

Pixie, the lone figure crouched in the darkness, watched as the door leading to the roof opened and a shabbily dressed figure stepped out. The young woman could only hope that this was the person she'd told to meet her on the roof and not a false alarm. She'd told the individual known as Eurisko to meet her on the roof so he could learn the truth.

Of course, she failed to mention that he wasn't going to learn the truth from her. Pixie figured that might scare Eurisko away. For some strange reason, he only agreed to meet because she'd promised to come alone. Pixie figured she could add that to the list of strange things about Eurisko.

Topping her little mental list was the fact Eurisko would only speak with her and not some of the more famous- or infamous, depending on what frame of reference you were using- individuals she worked with.

The young woman, herself, was dressed in much the same way she'd been dressed the night before. Pixie was a creature all in black spandex; dancers clothing but she'd never been a dancer during her time in the Matrix. The short leather jacket she always wore over her clothing was heavier than normal because of the weapons she carried with her.

Pixie really hadn't been keen on going back into the Matrix so soon after her little initiation by fire. She knew she had to go back in as soon as possible, though, because the longer she waited the harder it was going to be for her to go back in. It was like falling off a horse or a bicycle, if you didn't get back on as soon as possible, you were never going to get back on. Pixie had never ridden a horse and had never been healthy enough to actually ride a bicycle while in the Matrix but the idea was still the same in her mind.

As much as she didn't like the idea, she was going to have to go back in.

Much to her surprise, since Pixie figured that she was just a small piece of a much larger picture, she'd found that she'd been given a new weapon, along with the knowledge on how to use it, of course. Tucked into a very small holster that fit just under the bell-bottomed leg of her unitard, pressing against her ankle in a rather uncomfortable way, was a tranquilizer gun.

From what was downloaded into her head, she knew that the weapon was small but powerful. Hypothetically speaking, it had enough power to knock back a large animal. She could only imagine what it would do to a person who was hit with one of its small darts. Still, knocking someone out was better than ending someone's life, virtual as it was.

At least that was how Pixie saw things. It may have not been the right way to see things but it worked for her. It got her to go back into the Matrix despite the fact she wasn't all that keen on going in.

The young woman watched the figure step from the doorway onto the darkened roof. In the rapidly shrinking light of the closing door, Pixie noticed that this was the person she was looking for. True, she'd never seen Eurisko face-to-face but she did know how to read the Matrix code like an Operator. She knew what the young man looked like despite the fact she'd never seen him in the flesh.

Though she was glad the person she'd been waiting for decided to arrive, Pixie waited a few moments more. She wanted to be sure that things were as safe as they could be, given the circumstances. Besides, watching Eurisko pace the length of the roof without straying too far into the shadows, Pixie figured there was no harm in making Eurisko just a bit more off balance. She remembered being distinctly disorientated and confused the day she was freed. Maybe that had something to do with why she took the red pill. Pixie wasn't entirely sure but she still figured that it was a good idea to let Eurisko wander around some and wonder just why the mysterious "Shieldmaiden" wanted to meet him on his roof.

Once the young woman decided enough time had passed- about two or three minutes by her own internal clock- she, softly, called, "I'm here."

Eurisko jumped at the sudden intrusion of sound, earning him a ghost of a smile from Pixie. Of course, he didn't see the smile as it was carefully tucked away by the time he located the owner of the almost whisper like voice.

"Are you the Shieldmaiden?" he asked, ogling the black clad figure he'd found melting into the roof's shadows, "Why'd you ask to meet up here?"

"I would be the Shieldmaiden," she informed the male in as stern a voice as she could muster, "but you can call me Pixie. I know you call yourself Eurisko and I've asked you to come up here to make you an offer. One I think you'd be rather interested in."

Eurisko was a tallish man of nearly twenty. He had stringy blond hair and squinty, pale blue eyes that peeked out from under thick black rimmed glasses. He looked, for all the world, like the atypical hacker with his unkempt appearance and his almost milky white pallor. The latter feature was, affectionately, nicknamed the "computer tan" by some in Zion.

"How do you know my name?" he questioned, sounding slightly stunned.

Pixie wanted to say something to the effect of "Because I've been talking to you for a few weeks now trying to get you to head in the right direction" but she knew that answer lacked tact. In her head, where she ran through almost everything she wanted to say before she said it, that sounded downright rude. Since she didn't want to seem rude, lest Eurisko decided to take everything she said with a grain of salt and not give her the attention her offer actually warranted, Pixie decided to change her tune.

"It's my job to know these things," Pixie answered, her answer purposefully vague and mysterious sounding.

"I've been talking to you all this time," he mumbled, speaking just loud enough for Pixie to hear and shaking his lank haired head.

His hair looked like it hadn't been washed or brushed in several days or weeks. His whole appearance spoke to an obsession with the truth he was seeking instead of the world he was living in. Pixie immediately noticed the difference in appearance between Eurisko and Wheeler, the only other hacker she could think of with hair that earned its very own set of adjectives.

Eurisko's hair looked dirty. It made her want to put her hands in the pockets of her short, leather jacket just so she wouldn't run the risk of touching it. Wheeler, with his distinctly scruffy, unkempt looking hair- She knew he did take care of it though. No matter what he did to it, Wheeler always looked like he'd just rolled out of bed without bothering to brush his dirty blond hair. - looked clean. For some very strange and rather unexplainable reason, in her opinion anyway, she wanted to run her hands through Wheeler's hair just to see how it felt.

Shaking herself free of her own reverie, Pixie gave a very small, childlike giggle and asked, "I'm not what you were expecting, huh?"

"I was expecting someone…I don't know…bigger, I guess. You talk a big talk but you're not all that big yourself," he replied, with a shrug of his slouchy looking shoulders.

"It's not the size of the dog in the fight but the fight in the dog," Pixie commented, speaking softly, "Anyway, we don't have a lot of time for small talk. You wanted to find out about the truth, didn't you?"

Though it may have been a bit of the paranoia sneaking in, Pixie looked around the roof, as if expecting an Agent or two to appear at any moment. She leaned forward, making it seem like she had to tie the laces on her boot, and pulled the tranquilizer gun from its holster. Doing her best to close the item in her fist, she placed it in the pocket of her jacket.

"Just in case," she, mentally, mused, "better to be safe than sorry."

"That's why I came up here. I want to know the truth about this Matrix thing. Are you going to tell me the truth?" Eurisko wanted to know, still looking at Pixie as if she was less a person and more something out of a comic book.

"I'm not going to be the one to tell you the truth, sorry. I can take you to someone who can, though. I'm just the messenger here," Pixie answered, telling Eurisko just enough to keep him curious but keeping things vague just in case he bolted.

An uncomfortable sort of silence crept over the roof as the two young people tried to figure out what to do next. Eurisko was busy staring at Pixie in a way that was making her very uncomfortable- Aside from Hawk's occasional glance, Pixie wasn't entirely use to being stared at like she was some sort of piece of meat.- while the young, black clad woman was just looking for a quick exit. She was, mentally, kicking herself for deciding on such a open location for this meeting

"Eurisko's Greek, isn't it? Means something like 'I discover things,'" Pixie stated, breaking the painful silence and trying to decide the best way, the safest way, to get off the roof.

Eurisko shrugged, looking baffled. Pixie gave the young man a curious look, silently asking for him to go on with just her eyes. Though Pixie had earned her name in a very strange and silly way, she figured everyone else had a reason for taking a new identity. There had to be a reason for picking the names they'd decided on.

"I don't know. I picked it because it sounded cool. I got it from this X-Files episode called 'The Ghost in the Machine.' The company in the episode was called 'Eurisko' and it just sounded cool to me," the stringy haired man replied, answering Pixie's unspoken question and giving her the reasoning behind his name.

Pixie gave an internal laugh at the reason behind the stringy haired male's name. It wasn't exactly what she'd been expecting as a reason. She knew a member of the resistance who called himself Ghost and made a mental note to someday ask him why he chose that name. Perhaps, it had to do with the actual "Ghost in the Machine" theory some of the more intelligent hackers brought up. From what she understood of the theory, it had something to do an artificial intelligence creating the most basic soul since it had intelligence.

"Follow me," Pixie ordered with an exasperated sigh, "We'd better get going. I don't want to keep the person who's going to offer you the truth waiting."

The young woman led Eurisko to the building's fire escape and had him begin climbing down. She figured that, at least if he started down and began to transform into an Agent, she'd have a good chance of hitting him with a tranquilizer dart. That and she figured it was safer for her to go second. If she'd gone first, Eurisko- or Eurisko-as-Agent- might be able to get the jump on her and that was something Pixie didn't want.

Despite all of her precautions and mental planning, the pair got to the alleyway between the buildings without an issue. No one turned into an Agent and there was no need for anyone to have a tranquilizer dart put in the fleshy part of their neck or arm.

"Walk to the mouth of the alleyway and wait for me there," Pixie told the young man, her eyes trying to take in everything about her surroundings.

If the young, lanky haired male thought Pixie's requests were odd, he didn't say anything. Eurisko did as he was told, watching Pixie as he did so. There was something rather interesting about the young woman who claimed to know the "truth," whatever that was, in his mind. Now that he could see her in the harsh glow of the streetlights, he figured he had to say something to her.

"Let's say you and me forget this cloak and dagger stuff and go back up to my apartment. I have some data you might like," he called from the mouth of the alley, looking back at the slow moving Pixie.

Pixie made a disgusted face. It was always the same story when a female went to pick up a male potential. She contemplated somehow scaring Eurisko on him just to get him to stop leering but decided against it. That was just something she wasn't apt to do.

"No thanks," she, coolly, declined, coming up to stand next to Eurisko, "I'd rather not. Besides, our ride is pulling up anyway. You can turn back now, if you'd like."

As she spoke, a long black car, very much like the one she had ridden in when going to see the Oracle, had pulled up to the alleyway. She climbed into the front seat on the passenger's side, watching Eurisko curiously.

The young man hesitated for a fraction of second as car's back door opened. He couldn't see if there was anyone else in the back seat and, truth be told, he was more than a little scared. Still, he wanted to learn the truth and he wasn't about to be shown up by a girl who looked younger than he was. Steeling his courage, Eurisko climbed into the back seat of the car.

Pixie gave a small nod of greeting to the driver, Apoc, and the other person sitting in the back seat, Cypher. As they began to drive towards their destination- The young woman wasn't entirely sure where they were headed. – Pixie slipped her tranquilizer gun out of her pocket and trained it on Eurisko. She felt bad doing such a thing but she knew the reasons behind it. It was part of the job and it wasn't her place to question why.

Eurisko's watery eyes went as wide as saucers as he saw the weapon being pointed in his general direction. Looking to the other person sharing the backseat with him, he found yet another gun trained on him. Cypher gave Pixie a look when he noticed that she was holding her tranquilizer gun instead of a normal fire arm. The young woman shrugged, not bothering to give him a verbal answer. If she got in trouble for her strange move, she'd explain it to Morpheus and Trinity later.

"What's this about?" Eurisko asked with a quaver of fear in his voice.

"Just a little insurance, to keep us safe from you," Cypher answered, a small and greasy looking- if a smile could be greasy anyway- smile on his face, "Don't worry, I'm sure the little lady won't do anything to you. It's me you have to watch out for. Sometimes my finger slips."

Pixie shook her head at Cypher's comment, noting that Apoc was doing the same as he drove. There was no need for his sarcastic comments at this point in time. As a matter of fact, there never seemed to be a need for such comments. True, the world they lived in wasn't the best of places but there was no call to be that sarcastic.

"Don't worry," Pixie stated, speaking as if she was talking to a small and frightened furry animal, "you're in no danger unless something very bad starts to happen."

"Hopefully," she added in an undertone, "it won't happen and we won't have to worry."

An old sugar refinery was their destination of the quartet. The three males and one female stepped out of the black car and walked, carefully, into the crumbling building. Pixie's hands were in her pockets, slipping behind Apoc as they walked through the wreck of the once busy refinery.

"Where are we going?" Eurisko asked, looking to his three companions for answers.

"You wanted answers. We're taking you to someone who can provide them," Pixie answered, speaking quietly.

Pixie followed closely behind Apoc, trying not to imagine what was crawling all over the floor. She heard the occasional squeak and the pattering of small feet, indicating that there were mice or rats living here. It wasn't that she was afraid of vermin. It was more like she didn't want them running over her boots or sinking their sharp, little claws or teeth into the flesh of her leg.

It seemed like an eternity before they reached a junction in the hallway. It was sort of a T-shaped junction, with hallways running in either direction. Since they were stopping, Pixie figured this was where she'd be handing Eurisko off to someone else while she went to go set up the machinery used just in case he decided to take the red pill.

"Pixie, take Eurisko down the left hand corridor. Cypher and I have some equipment to set up," Apoc told the medic-in-training, offering her a small flashlight.

Pixie was quiet surprised that she was being allowed to take Eurisko to Morpheus. Still, she composed herself and nodded her head to show she understood what she was being asked to do. Flashlight in hand, she beckoned Eurisko to follow her down a long and darkened length of hallway.

"How old are you?" Eurisko asked, making nervous conversation now.

"I'm eighteen, nearly nineteen really. I know you're about twenty," Pixie answered, with an unseen smile.

"You're just a kid," he exclaimed, "what are you doing with a gun?"

"When you're in my line of work, it's not really safe to go without one," Pixie commented, not giving away too much information.

Silence reigned again, as Pixie found the only door along the hallway. It was heavy metal and opened just a crack. She led Eurisko into the room and took her exit as Morpheus sat the young man down.

She trotted along the hallway, heading down the right hand corridor, her flashlight a bobbing beam on the walls and floor. Pixie was a little more than excited about what was going to take place. She'd never taken part or even seen an unplugging. Her first, and only, experience had been her own and that didn't really count. After having her glasses taken away, she hadn't seen much of anything until she woke up in her pod and even then everything was a huge blur.

Her first real, clear images of her new world had come after she'd been rebuilt. Pixie had never asked what Morpheus and the others did to her eyes in order to get them to work better. Whatever they did, she was thankful for it. Being without her glasses had been odd at first but now it was almost as if she'd never worn them.

She banged on the door, demanding to be let in. She wasn't quite sure what role, if any role was left for her, she was going to play if Eurisko took the red pill. All Pixie knew was that she had to get home somehow. It made sense to head towards the rest of her team in order to do just that.

"It's the kid," Cypher commented, peering out a crack in the door.

"Which kid?" a voice behind him called, "The new kid, already?"

"It's me!" Pixie called, "Let me in, Cypher."

The older rebel groaned and opened the door just wide enough to let Pixie squeeze in. The room, old crumbling stone and mortar, was filled to bursting with make shift mechanical equipment. Nothing made a sound but everything seemed to be sparking with life.

"You're over there," Cypher pointed, going back to the machine he was calibrating.

Pixie followed his finger and found herself behind, what looked like, a plain old computer and keyboard. She recalled that she was supposed to be putting in the parameters for a human male, age 20. That information had been imprinted into her mind, back before she had taken her three tests.

She was still inputting parameters, when Morpheus led a wide eyed Eurisko into the room. Pixie assumed he had taken the red pill. The room became a flurry of motion, everyone working to get a lock on Eurisko's position in the power plant.

Pixie sat at her computer, staring at the screen. It looked almost like one of the monitors in the medical bay. The type of monitor that showed heartbeat and other vital signs. She guessed that her role was going to be akin to the one she was being groomed to play. That was, she was being asked to be a medic.

Someone called out, taking note of Pixie's monitor, that Eurisko was going into cardiac arrest and Morpheus was asking Tank, who was taking part via the phone, a series of questions. Pixie wasn't really listening all that intently. All her focus was on the monitor in front of her. His stats had taken a dramatic downturn; making her wonder if he was going to come out the other side brain dead.

Then the room went deathly quiet. Eurisko's form seemed to have vanished from the old swivel chair it had been sitting on.

"What now?" she asked, feeling both profoundly stupid and profoundly confused.

She realized that, with the new person coming on board the ship, she was going to have several hours of new work on her hands. There'd been whispers that a time was growing dangerously close and everyone needed to be prepared. Eurisko, as cruel as it sounded, was what Dozer was going to use to teach Pixie the art of rebuilding somebody.

"We get to an exit and pick up that kid before he drowns," Cypher said, pulling Pixie in front of him.

She shrugged out of his grasp and started to walk on her own. The last thing she wanted was for Cypher to direct her towards their exit. She could walk; she could stand on her own two feet. Pixie didn't need Cyper's help and, with a small smile, she realized that she wasn't so scared anymore.


	5. The Scientist

AN: Hiya everyone! Well, New York City is now, officially, the Big Frozen Apple. Winter's finally decided to rear its ugly head here in the city. We've had some snow but, much to my mother's chagrin, not enough to get her out of school. It's enough just to make things very icy and slippery. Not always a good thing to say the least! The cold weather is definitely making me look forward to spring and to the start of baseball season. At least, then, it won't be cold anymore! Anywho…enough about the weather! I hope everyone's having a good time doing whatever it is all of you are doing now, whether that be school, work, or something else! I'm happy to see people reading this little misadventure of mine. I only wrote this to pass time in college and to get an idea out of my head. Please, keep on reading and letting me know what you think! I'm open to any opinions- good, bad, or indifferent!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and in graduate school studying biology. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"I was just guessing at numbers and figures  
Pulling your puzzles apart  
Questions of science, science and progress…" (from "The Scientist" by Coldplay)

Pixie had only been present for the actual freeing of one mind, technically speaking. Then again, it was her own freeing and her eyes hadn't exactly been working properly. If one wanted to be extremely technical, her eyes hadn't worked well at all- She'd always worn glasses in the Matrix so her eyesight had been weaker than normal upon her freeing- so she really hadn't seen anything. Just blurs that might have been people but that was entirely arguable.

Since she'd decided that her own freeing didn't count, part of Pixie was excited to see the Real World aspect of a person's freeing. It was that sort of excitement brought on by extreme curiosity. Something that was both interesting and exciting was about to take place, in Pixie's opinion anyway, and she wanted to watch the entire process just to see what was going on.

The rest of Pixie- The parts that weren't excited by what was going on around her- was more than a little nervous. Upon her return to the ship she called home, Pixie had been informed by Morpheus that she'd be helping to rebuild Eurisko. Despite the fact she'd learned all about rebuildings from her days as a student in the Zion Academy and from a few downloads during her early days on the ship, Morpheus insisted that it was more something one had to experience rather than just learn in a lecture or from a download. More practical, hands on, knowledge was needed.

Though she was going to be taught by two older individuals- Morpheus and Dozer- Pixie was still nervous. She was going to be responsible for putting someone together in order to prepare them for living in Zion. Her nerves were made worse by the fact that she'd been working on someone she knew relatively well. After all, she was the person who'd led Eurisko into the situation he was going to find himself in.

Her musings were interrupted, however, by the actions going on around her and the sound of rusty gears being worked. Pixie shook her head, clearing out the cobwebs and getting herself focused in the here and now. It wouldn't do anyone any good for her to be drifting off. She could do that later when she wasn't about to learn something new.

With an unceremonious plop- Tank was running the giant claw that plucked newly freed individuals from the sewers- Erusiko was dropped onto the cold metal grate that acted as the floor on the _Nebuchadnezzar_. Pixie averted her eyes, blushing ever so slightly, when it registered that the newly unplugged young man was completely naked. The young woman did realize that every newly unplugged person was lacking in the clothing department but the reality of it, the fact it was staring right in the face so to speak, made her a bit uncomfortable.

"Some medic I'm going to be," she, mentally, chided, "I can't even look at the person I'm supposed to be taking care of without blushing. Definitely something I'm going to have to work on."

Hawk, standing just off Pixie's left shoulder, watched as the young woman's cheeks turned a slight shade of pink and her head turn to stare someplace else in the sparse space. He snickered just loud enough for Pixie to hear but quiet enough that no one else did.

"I guess you're not as tough as you think you are, huh Pixie Sticks?" Hawk, dryly, commented, speaking to the blushing medic-in-training.

Pixie had something like a sharp retort for Hawk but the words never left her mouth. The young woman spotted Morpheus gesturing for her to follow him, Dozer, and the draped figure they carried between them. Doing as she was told, Pixie followed but decided to keep back at what she deemed a "respectable" distance. She knew she was suppose to be "helping" but, without the exact knowledge of what she was suppose to be doing; Pixie did not want to get in the way.

The strange looking parade stopped at the medical bay, Pixie's unofficial home away from home away from home. She'd spent countless hours- or what seemed like countless hours- in said space learning from the more experienced members of the crew she worked with. At the moment, though, Pixie hung back, observing the bald and discreetly covered figure that was Eurisko.

"Pixie, come here," Morpheus called, spotting the medic-in-training trying her best not to be noticed as she stood against a wall.

Quietly and tentatively, Pixie walked over to the metallic operating table. Without his lank hair, Eurisko looked like a totally different person. His face looked thinner, older maybe, and his skin was the color of potato flakes held together with white paste. "Computer tan" or not, at least before he had something akin to color. Not he looked like a ghost that had the life scared out of him.

Pixie was almost tempted to ask if they'd picked up the wrong person but she held herself in check. Such a question was not only inappropriate but silly sounding. There was no, feasible, way for them to pick up the wrong person. Tank was too good at his job for that to happen.

"Yes, sir," she responded, speaking in a hushed voice and staring at her hands, feet, anywhere but the figure on the table.

"Are you prepared to help us or not?" Morpheus asked, giving Pixie a curious look.

He wanted Pixie to take part in Eurisko's rebuilding because the hands on experience would be beneficial for her but he wanted to be sure she wanted to help. Morpheus knew that, if he ordered her to, Pixie would jump right in to do her part. He wanted to give her the choice to help first, before giving Pixie any orders.

Pushing her jitters aside and making an attempt to be confident in her skills, Pixie nodded and replied, "Of course, sir. It's my job, isn't it?"

Pixie waited to be told what to do next, standing at the side of the metallic operating table like a dutiful little medical student. She watched Morpheus and Dozer, studying their movements with a careful eye lest she be asked to repeat something later. Pixie didn't want to make any mistakes later on since she didn't want to be the cause of something bad happening to Eurisko because of her ineptitude.

The way things were looking, it was going to be a long few days…or weeks.


	6. Karn Evil 9

AN: Hiya everyone! Well, school's started for me again. Technically, anyway, since I only go once a week. I'd rather go several days but I didn't have much of a choice this semester. The best I could manage was two classes on one day a week. I guess that has its upsides, though. I mean, I'm home the rest of the week with time enough to do my own work. My sister started school too which means it's only a matter of time before she starts dumping her own work on me. She's graduating at the end of this semester and she's suffering from a very bad case of senioritis. Actually, it's more like a really bad case of her just not wanting to do any work. She's lazy that way. Anywho, I hope there are people out there still reading this little misadventure. If you're reading this, thanks very much! You guys rock like a box of socks!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and in graduate school studying biology. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends

We're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside" (From "Karn Evil 9 1st Impression Part 2" by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer)

It seemed like an age and half since Pixie last left the ship she called home and walked out into the slightly warmer climate that seemed to permeate Zion. Then again, Pixie's sense of time had always been a little skewed. She was the person who had trouble discerning days when she first started working on the ship she called home. She might have been exaggerating when she said she hadn't been home in a very long time.

"I'll catch up with you guys when we leave," Pixie called, waving to the other members of the crew of the _Nebuchadnezzar_.

Dressed as any other shipboard worker, Pixie was fairly bouncing on the balls of her feet. It wasn't that she hated her job or anything of the sort. She wasn't eager to leave her ship because she couldn't stand the people she worked with. That wasn't true by a long shot.

"What about that date we had later?" Hawk called, whistling at Pixie as she stood a bit away from her fellow _Nebuchadnezzar_ crew members.

Scratch that, there was one person she didn't enjoy working with.

Since their little falling out back during their school days, Pixie and Hawk's relationship- if you could call it that- was a bit on the strange side. There were days when Hawk wanted to befriend Pixie and act like they did before he turned his back on her and the others. He'd try to talk to her or, worse, say things to her that he knew, full well, would make her blush in a nervous sort of way.

Other days, Hawk just gave Pixie cold glares or said disparaging things in her general direction. That was the version of Hawk, Pixie noticed, that came out when she said anything about Wheeler. There were other things that seemed to trigger Hawk's cold behavior but talking about Wheeler seemed to be the big one, though. He really didn't like hearing about the scruffy, dirty blond haired baseball player Pixie had befriended.

Pixie shook her head, feeling her cheeks turn an interesting shade of pink. She couldn't say if the color was the result of her being angry or embarrassed, though. Dating Hawk was the last thing she wanted to do. There might have been a time, back when she was still in the Matrix and had no one else, when Pixie might have actually considered dating Hawk. She'd been too sick to do such things so the point was really moot.

After everything he did and said to her- Pixie was including the fight he'd had with Wheeler- the medic-in-training didn't really want to have anything to do with him. The fact they worked together was just something she knew she had to deal with. Pixie figured she was doing a passable job at that. She managed to ignore Hawk most of the time and not let him get to her.

Walking with her battered satchel slung over her shoulder's backpack style and her waist length hair in a braid that swung side to side like a horse's tail, Pixie didn't notice the person walking towards her until it was too late. She bunked into said individual, her boney shoulder and hip crashing into the other person's shoulder and hip.

"So, you're dating Hawk, huh?" stated the individual Pixie had just crashed into, "I thought you and he had that falling out. I guess working on a ship with someone will do that to a girl."

Pixie blinked for a moment, her apology evaporating off of her tongue, and gave the person she'd bunked into a very good look. The person's face became clearer- Pixie hadn't really been paying much attention to where she was going so she wasn't really seeing the other people walking along the catwalks that made up Zion's sidewalks- and a smile crossed Pixie's face. The natural reaction of a person would have been to be angry but, with this person, teasing was expected. It was just a good natured thing, not meant to hurt her feelings.

At least, that's what Pixie hoped. There were times her belief in the fact this person was doing things all in fun was stronger than others. At the moment, though, she figured that this was being done all in fun.

"No…no…I'm wouldn't do something like that, Aisling," Pixie, quickly, responded, "you know me better than that."

"Then why would he say something like that, Pix?" Aisling asked, turning her blue eyes towards Pixie and pushing back a short honey colored ponytail with one hand.

Pixie gave her friend a shrug and answered, "I don't really know and I'm almost afraid to actually find out what prompted him to say something like that. Just trust me when I say that I'm not going out with Hawk."

"Good to hear, Pix. I think, if Wheeler heard that you were, he'd be rather upset," the blue eyed young woman commented, as she walked with Pixie.

The brandy brown eyed young woman wasn't exactly sure why Aisling was following her but she didn't allow it to deter her from her chosen path. Aisling had her reasons for following Pixie and Pixie wasn't going to be allowed to know those reasons until her friend decided to reveal them to her. Besides, Pixie was glad to have some company. Especially when it was someone she hadn't spoken with in a good long while.

"So, where are we headed today, Pix?" Aisling wanted to know as Pixie continued to take a winding route through Zion's catwalk streets, "Just taking a walk to reacquaint yourself with the city or something?"

"Your brother's in Zion or is he still out with the _Rebel Stand_?" Pixie asked, catching Aisling off guard with her own question.

Aisling gave her Pod Born friend a sidelong glance, wondering where that question came from. It didn't appear to have anything to do with what they were talking about at the moment- Alright, what she was talking about since she was the one asking Pixie questions- and it didn't seem to have anything to do with Pixie's little walk about either. Aisling was starting to feel like Pixie was just walking around for the sake of walking around. Going in random directions just because she was either lost, which wasn't likely because Pixie wasn't some random new person fresh from their pod, or just confused. The latter might have been likely because Pixie was just a bit scatterbrained.

"Adoh's in the city somewhere. I don't know where because I'm not his keeper. He's a big boy now," Aisling answered, with a laugh.

A curious look crossed Pixie's face as she suddenly recalled something and she pointed out, "So, your brother's with Ngaio which is why you're not worried where he is. Is that right?"

Where Aisling had a teasing personality that could be considered abrasive at times, Adoh was the type of person who found everything fun. He was a friendly sort of person who'd talk to a wall if he had no one else to talk to. During her days at the Academy in Zion, Adoh had never failed to make Pixie laugh. His ability to make people laugh- or just make himself laugh- was welcomed when the lot of them were trying to study for exams. It was a pleasant way of taking a break from the stress of studying.

Though he was the friendly sort, his relationship with Pixie had been nothing but platonic. The two of them were buddies, almost brother and sister but not quite for some reason. Other than the fact they weren't blood related, of course. Either way, Aisling's twin brother had, as of about a year ago, give or take a few weeks on either side, decided to get closer to an Asian Pod Born friend of theirs who called herself Ngaio.

"Very good, Pix," Aisling laughed, "you figured it out! He's around here someplace with her. I figure the two of them are together, so they can't get into too much trouble."

"Adoh was never one to get into trouble in the first place," Pixie put in, "not on purpose anyway. Accidentally, now that's a different story. We all can't help it when we…accidentally….get into trouble."

"Good point," the other female stated.

A few beats passed before she asked, "Pixie, where in the world are we going? You taking a tour of Zion before you decide to go home or to Rain's or to wherever it is you're going today?"

Pixie turned and gave Aisling what had been unofficially dubbed a "pixie smile." It was one of those smiles that spoke of mischief and trickery and let Aisling know that she wasn't going to get the answer she was looking for. She had two choices on what she wanted to do. Either she continued to walk with Pixie and figure out just what the dark haired young woman was doing or leave and never know what she'd been up to.

Given those two options, Aisling decided just to go with Pixie and see what she was up to.

"I'm surprised you're here alone, actually," Pixie commented, looping back towards the docking bay, "Where's Conall?"

Aisling gave Pixie a look but she wasn't surprised that she recalled. Pixie might have been a scatterbrained medic but she still seemed to remember things. Remember them extremely well, actually. It was a fact that drove Aisling out of her mind. One of many things that drove Aisling crazy when it came to her Pod Born friend but, still, she figured Pixie couldn't help it.

Sometimes Pod Borns, in her estimation, were strange like that.

"Conall's not in Zion at the moment. He's working on the _Vector Prime_ and you know the story with that ship, right?" Aisling answered.

Pixie grimaced at the thought of that ship. There were always rumors running around Zion about ships and their crews. That was just how things worked in the underground city. Sometimes the rumors were truth, other times, more often than not, they weren't. However, anything anyone heard about the _Vector Prime_ was probably true. Especially when it related to the ship's First Mate and his rather…sketchy…antics.

"Poor Conall," Pixie, honestly, commented, "must be rough having to work on a ship where your First Mate wants to play chicken with Agents and your Captain keeps having to stop him. Actually, it has to be worse for him because he can't go into the Matrix. He has to watch all that stuff go on."

She headed towards the central portion of the docking bay- She'd only taken the long way to get there because she didn't want to get suck in crowded corridors- looking for those who knew where every ship in Zion's fleet was. Once upon a time, Torrent had told her about this place. Told her to come here if she ever wanted to know where he or any of her friends on ships were at any given time. He'd gone as far as to introduce her to one of his friends so she'd have someone to go to right away.

That was rather helpful since Pixie didn't want to bother random people with her little request. She figured they had better things to do with their time than deal with a silly request from a young adult who wanted to know where her friends were at any given time.

"Leu?" she asked, wandering over to an older looking woman with hair the color of steel who was completely engrossed in the computer she was working behind.

The older woman seemed not to hear Pixie. She was thoroughly engrossed in whatever was on the screen before her. The older woman could have been doing something of vital importance, giving coordinates to a ship that was near a ship in distress for instance, but Pixie wasn't entirely sure.

She gave the older woman a few moments before calling her name again.

Still the older woman didn't respond to Pixie's summons. She continued to work at the computer before her. Her hands moved with a speed that undermined her age. She was working fast, if not faster, than most young people in the fleet. Her fingers were very nearly flying over the strange looking keys on her keyboard. For some unknown reason- At least unknown to Pixie anyway- the keys on any Zion keyboard were adorned with strange looking symbols instead of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks. They symbols on the keyboards bore a slight resemblance to the values that made up the Matrix code, giving Pixie the idea a clue as to why they were on the keyboards.

"Leucine," Pixie called, leaning around the computer.

Leu's- pronounced "Lou" even though that was a somewhat masculine nickname-head snapped up. It was rare for somebody to call her by her given name. Most everyone called her by her nickname, despite the fact she'd initially disliked it. After all, Leucine was a female and the nickname made her sound like a guy. Now, after man years of being called by the frustrating nickname, the name had grown on her.

Leucine was a Pod Born, a biochemistry Graduate Student during her days in the Matrix. She'd stumbled onto the Matrix while being asked to test an unknown biomolecule by men in dark glasses and black suits. She'd been given the choice to leave soon after, taking the name of one of the twenty amino acids and never looking back. She split her time between the few scattered science labs in Zion, Zion Control, and her tiny family, including three children bearing the names Alanine, Serine, and Glycine.

She spotted Pixie and gave her a slight wave. It was camaraderie among thieves as she noticed Pixie was wearing a beat up light green sweatshirt---an indication of someone either in the medical or science field.

"If it isn't Torrent's adopted kid," Leucine commented, "What brings you down here? Who are we looking for today?"

"I'd like some information about ships, Leu. Are the _Shatterpoint _or the_ Logos_ in?" Pixie questioned.

Leu typed in a command, pulling up the long list of ships that were currently active members of the Zion Fleet. The list detailed the locations of every ship and their communication status.

"The _Shatterpoint _docked yesterday- repair work, according to what I'm reading. Seems like Mace and company got into a bit of a scrape with some Squiddies. -and the _Logos_ docked just before you. They're in for a routine recharging," Leucine informed Pixie.

"We've walked all over Zion and back again, just to find out if Wheeler and someone else- Who do you know that's on the _Logos_, Pix?- are in the city? I could have told you that Wheeler was in town," Aisling pointed out.

"Kind of, sort of yeah," Pixie, sheepishly replied, "and my friend Chian works on the _Logos_. She has a tendency to pop up when I least expect her so I like to know when she's around. She can't catch me at unawares if I know to watch out for her."

Aisling laughed and shook her head. That was far too much planning on Pixie's part, in her opinion. Almost borderline paranoid, actually.

"Just make sure you get back to your ship in time," Leucine commented, watching Pixie's smile and having a good laugh at the incredulous look being worn by Pixie's friend, "Don't want Captain Morpheus angry at you for holding him up because you were out and about with your friends."

"I'll make sure to get back on time," Pixie affirmed, "Thanks for your help."

Hefting her bag, which felt lighter than it usually did, Pixie began to wend her way to her own small home. She didn't have to think about where she was heading anymore; her feet knew their way. Aisling followed, swapping stories with her Pod Born friend. Adventures and misadventures were the order of the day.

There were people out on the catwalks even though it was early in the morning, Zion time. Small children raced back and forth as they waited for their parents to take them to their version of the Academy or with them wherever their parents were headed for the day. Older people headed towards their places of work, be it in a lab someplace or in one of the shops.

Pixie always considered it strange that people here got along. In the matrix, people fought all the time. Here everyone got along and, genuinely, wanted to help each other. Aside from the few squabbles had by the younger folks living in Zion, people were nice to each other.

She got to her door, opening it and taking in the state of her home. She laughed as she saw that someone had cleaned up in her absence. It wasn't like she was messy or anything like that, but she'd left a few things out of place the last time she was home. After all, she'd left in the middle of the night and she'd been in a bit of a hurry.

"You cleaned up before you left?" Aisling asked, shutting the door behind her, "You should see my place before I have to ship out. There are clothes and stuff everywhere."

"I try to," Pixie answered, "but I usually forget some things. I think Rain came down here and did some clean up work. I'm going to have to stop by and thank her."

"If by 'thank her' you mean show up and get invited to eat something, I'm all for it. Rain's a good cook," Aisling said, sitting down at one of the mismatched and worn chairs around Pixie's small table.

"I don't think she'd mind but I don't know what she's up to today," Pixie countered, starting to unpack her satchel and put things away.

She always traveled light so there was never a lot to, actually, put away. Besides, there wasn't a lot of room on the ship she called home to begin with. There were clothes that had to be washed or repaired and her small, handheld computer. That she placed in a niche in the wall.

"Where are we headed now?" Aisling asked, watching Pixie tip her last armload of clothing into a bin of clothes to be washed.

"I don't know," Pixie answered, "anyplace you want to go? Maybe go look for your brother and Ngaio?"

Pixie was eager to see all of her friends- not just Wheeler though he was high on the list- and she figured finding Adoh and Ngaio would be easier if Aisling was with her. After all, who knew Adoh better than his own twin?

"Nah….we can always catch up with them later. Let's go see Rain, find out if we're all free to eat with her, Torrent, and Eli later on," Aisling suggested, getting up and snagging Pixie's arm.

She knew that, once Aisling got an idea in her head, it was pretty hard to deter her from what she wanted. Besides, it would be nice to pay a visit to Rain.


	7. Many Meetings

AN: I got a new computer! Hooray for me! My old one broke and I couldn't get it to work. That said, my parents decided to, finally, spring for a new one. I guess the prospect of not having one with school work looming on the horizon, bothered my parents. Either way, I have a new computer that I'm still trying to figure out how to work. I mean, I have most of it figured out but it has the new Windows system on it and it's kinda different from the previous system. Actually, it runs in a way that's similar to the Mac systems. Not the biggest fans of the Mac Systems, myself. In the college I went to, all the computers in the Communication Arts department used Mac computers. I, usually, wound up helping my sister- A Communication Arts major- with her assignments using the Mac computers. Nine times out of ten, something would happen and the computers would crash and her class would lose their work. We'd have to go back in to do her assignments. Not exactly a fun thing! Anyway, anyone who's still out there reading this little misadventure, thank you very much! You're the best! Please keep reading and let me know what you think!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own _The Matrix_, _The Animatrix_, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and in graduate school studying biology. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

Menial tasks done with a little help from Aisling, the medic-in-training found herself headings towards Rain's workplace. Aisling followed Pixie, walking with her friend and keeping a running narrative about the happenings both inside and outside of Zion. Pixie threw in a few of her own stories but they seemed to pale in comparison to anything Aisling said. Pixie guessed her gossip wasn't exactly as great as Aisling's and, besides, she wasn't one to spread the gossip that came off of her ship.

Zion was, in Pixie's opinion, a relatively large city though the size seemed to change every time she came home. Sometimes the last human city seemed to be as huge and as imposing as any big city on the levels of New York's Manhattan or Japan's Tokyo or any other large urban location one could think of. There were times, though, where Zion seemed tiny. A small, tight knit community where everyone looked out for everyone else.

Like any city- This fact had come as a surprise to Pixie when she first came to live in Zion. Now she wanted to smack herself for thinking such silly things. - Zion had places to eat and places to shop. There wasn't much in the way of Zionist currency but everyone somehow managed to get what they needed through trading and what currency was used. After all, those who worked for the fleet were paid something for taking on their dangerous job.

On the outskirts of what passed for Zion's shopping district was a small shop that specialized in the restoration and creation of cloths and fabrics. It was in that necessary field that Rain worked.

"Pix," Aisling said as she and her friend stood in front of the tiny shop, "I'm going to go and tell my brother and Ngaio the good news about dinner. I'll meet you later at your place, I guess."

Pixie gave her friend an odd look since she didn't understand what made Aisling so sure Rain was going to allow any of them over to eat. True, Pixie had her own open invitation to Rain's home but she wasn't sure if said open invitation included her rather colorful group of friends.

"I guess so. If Rain says that you guys can't come over, you guys are just going to have to put up with what passes for my cooking," Pixie answered with a laugh.

It was Aisling's turn to make a face at her friend. Pixie was good at a lot of things. She was one of the smartest people Aisling knew and could pick up anything thrown at her given enough time. There was just one teeny, tiny issue where Pixie was concerned. One small, itty, bitty skill that Pixie had never really been able to master.

Though it didn't exist on ships, there was some actual food- the kind you had to eat with utensils- available in Zion. Food that could be cooked and prepared in dishes that weren't exactly as fancy as anything available in the Matrix but sufficed to keep the underground population living.

Smart as she was, however, Pixie couldn't exactly master the entire art of cooking. It wasn't to say she was a lousy cook. It was just that there were others who were better than she was.

Others that included her foster mother, Rain.

"Alright," Pixie laughed, looking at Aisling's half horrified expression, half joking expression, "We'll find someplace to eat. Is that better?"

"Much!" the other female stated, "And now, my Pod Born buddy, I'll take my leave. Got to let my brother and my other Pod Born buddy know what our plans are."

Before she headed off in the opposite direction, Aisling added, "If you happen to run into Wheeler, let him know he can come too. Though I don't think you'd say 'no' to him coming even if I said you couldn't ask him"

The honey haired young woman disappeared into the milling crowd faster than Pixie could get any of her thoughts organized. Not that she could get her thoughts organized all that quickly when it came to that subject.

Shaking her head and sporting a rather spectacular blush, Pixie pushed opened the door and wandered into the tiny shop. Bolts of rough fabric rested in dull colored piles along the shelves carved out of the rock walls while the raw material that was used to make thread- Pixie wasn't exactly sure what it was since she had never had the occasion to see any sheep, cotton plants, or anything else of the like- waited to be spun in containers on the metallic counters.

The store wasn't exactly busy but it wasn't exactly empty either. There were a few people patronizing the shop, buying fabric to make into clothing or whatever else they needed.

Pixie's slipping into the store didn't exactly go unnoticed as the grizzled looking man- Well, he was more mountain than man and, if Pixie remembered correctly, he called himself Bear.- who owned the shop spotted her and called, "Rain's in the back, if that's who you're looking for kid."

With a smile of thanks, as a paying customer decided that Bear needed to help her, the young woman made her way through to the back of the shop. There she found Rain running thread through a machine that wove the strands into cloth. Pixie's foster mother seemed so intent on her task that Pixie wasn't sure she wanted to bother her. Instead, Pixie decided to sit down and watch Rain for a handful of moments.

"And you said what I do is hard," Pixie pointed out after watching Rain work for a time.

Though the comment sounded a bit odd coming from someone who was training to be a medic, Pixie truly meant it. Rain's hands worked faster than her eyes could, readily, discern. Not only were her hands fast but they seemed to be deft as well. There were no bumps or strangely threaded bits in whatever Rain was working on.

Her work interrupted, Rain looked over her shoulder. The once serious expression she'd been wearing faded as she saw who was the source of the most welcome interruption. Rain was starting to get some form of hypnosis from watching the machine she worked with. At least that's what she figured anyway.

"When did you get in? How long have you been sitting there watching me?" she asked, looking at the now laughing Pixie.

"I got in just a while ago and I haven't been watching you all that long. I only just got down here to see you. Thanks for cleaning up my place, by the way," Pixie commented.

"It's not a problem, Pix," Rain assured her, "Takes my mind off of things when I'm not working or with Eli. I worry about you and Torrent being out there, you know."

Pixie gave Rain a sheepish sort of grin. She felt bad making Sprite worry but she really couldn't see herself doing any other job. As stressful as her job was, Pixie wouldn't change jobs for the world. There was something exciting about what she did though she could do without the whole being chased by Agents thing.

"Sorry?" Pixie, lamely, offered, knowing she could say little else to pacify Rain's fear for her and Torrent.  
"Not your fault. I'm just glad you're back safe and sound. Have any great adventures while you were out there?" Rain asked, settling herself back in front of the machine she'd been working with.

As Pixie watched her foster mother's hands working, the young woman told Rain everything that had transpired in her life since they'd last had the opportunity to talk. Pixie knew it wasn't going to be the last time she was forced to recount what had happened- Especially where the Agent and Eurisko's freeing were concerned- but she told the tale anyway. Later, if she wound up at Rain's home, she knew she'd have to tell an edited version of the story since Rain might not want Eli hearing about some of what happened.

By the time Pixie had finished telling her little tale, Rain had stopped working again. She was looking at Pixie with a concerned expression on her face. Though she wasn't really Pixie's mother- she'd adopted the fifteen year old version of the girl before her- Rain still felt as if Pixie was her daughter. Of all the children she'd adopted, Pixie was the one she'd been closest to, thus far. Rain couldn't say why but that was how she felt.

"You're alright now, though?" she wanted to know, looking Pixie in her brandy brown eyes, "After all of that I mean."

"I'm not sure I'm alright but I'm doing okay I guess. I'm glad to be home, though. Maybe some downtime with my friends will really help things," Pixie answered, averting her eyes to stare at the wall of the small shop.

It wasn't that she was hiding something from Rain that caused Pixie to avert her eyes. It was more like the fact that she felt extremely uncomfortable when faced with someone else's gaze. Uncomfortable enough that she, usually, found herself looking away in order to be slightly comfortable in whatever situation Pixie found herself in.

Rain gave Pixie a gentle smile and pointed out, "Some home cooking could help the situation out some. At least that's what my mom in the Matrix use to say when I came home after having a bad day at school. How about you come over later? I'm sure Eli would be glad to see you. It would get him out of poor Torrent's hair for a while."

With a small sigh, Pixie requested, "I ran into Aisling earlier…would it be alright if she, Adoh, and Ngaio came over too."

The older female laughed- a knowing sound more than a mocking sound- and answered, "They can come, of course. If you run into Wheeler out there, he's more than welcome to come too. I always like that guy. He was always the most respectful of all your friends."

"You're the second person today who's brought up Wheeler," Pixie laughed, "Why is that?"

She found it curious that first Aisling and now Rain had mentioned her bring Wheeler over with her today. Yes, she considered Wheeler to be her closest friend and she had been awful eager to see him in the flesh for the first time in quite some time but Pixie didn't understand what the big deal was.

Wasn't that normal for friends to miss each other and want to hang out together after not seeing each other for a long time?

"I can't tell you why Aisling brought him up but I can tell you that I brought him up because I know the two of you are buddies. Besides, it wouldn't be fair if I invited all of your friends over without inviting him over as well," Rain pointed out.

Pixie nodded her understanding of Rain's logic- After all, it wasn't fair to invite all of her friends and leave Wheeler out- and commented, "I wish I understood Aisling's logic, then. Actually, maybe I don't want to understand what Aisling's thinking. It could be a little on the scary side."

Rain laughed again and said, "I'd better get back to work here before Bear start's accusing me of slacking off. You come by with those friends of yours later and, please, make sure to find Wheeler."

"I'll try, Rain, I really will. I've been eager to see him anyway," Pixie stated.

"Good!" Rain countered, going back to staring at the machine before her, "Now get going and try to relax. You're safe so long as you're within the walls here. Nothing bad is going to happen to you here."

Waving to Rain and giving Bear another smile of thanks- this time for allowing her to take Rain away from her work for a time- Pixie found herself back out on the streets of Zion. No sooner had she stepped out of the shop, though, than she found herself being run down by someone with an armload of packages and a busy look on their face.

Said packages were placed on the ground, though, as Pixie found herself being pulled back to a standing position before she even had a chance to register the fact she'd hit the rocky ground.

"You should watch where you're going. You alright?" the individual stated, as she gathered her packages back in her arms.

"Maybe you shouldn't be in such a hurry to get somewhere, Chian. Not all of us are as tall as you are," Pixie retorted with a smile.

Chian- the individual who'd knocked Pixie over and an individual who considered Pixie her little sister most of the time- did a double take. Recognition seeped in as the face of the shorter, younger individual clicked in her mind. She'd been in such a rush to get back to her own home that she failed to recognize the fact she'd knocked over her friend.

"When did you get back?" Chian asked, curiously.

She knew Pixie's return to Zion had to have been a recent one. Usually she knew when her friend's ship was set to come in. Like Pixie, Chian knew someone in Zion control. Generally, she checked to find out if her friends were in the city but, today, it had slipped her mind. She had a few other things to think about that day, none of them having to do with any friends she had on ships other than the _Logos_.

"Today," Pixie replied with a sigh, "Sorry about bunking into you. Did I break anything of yours?"

Chian shook her head, both indicating that Pixie hadn't broken anything and in mild annoyance. She'd knocked Pixie over and not the other way around yet Pixie was apologizing to her. It didn't make any sense at all to Chian.

"I should be apologizing to you. I'm the one that wasn't paying attention to where I was going," Chian told Pixie, in a matter of fact sort of voice.

Thinking for a moment, she added, "Let me make it up to you by buying you something to solid to eat. I don't know about you but shopping always makes me hungry."

Not wanting to be impolite and turn Chian down- since she'd have to explain to Chian that she was going to go look for Wheeler and that would open a whole other can of worms Pixie really didn't want to have to deal with- Pixie, wearing a smile, answered, "That sounds fair, even though I haven't been shopping. I just came down here to see Rain. Still, I wouldn't mind eating something I, actually, have to chew."

"That's the spirit!" Chian stated, heading in the general direction of the large mess hall that served as a cafeteria for only members of Zion's fleet.

Pixie trotted behind her Chian, trying to keep up with Chian's running commentary about what she'd been doing since she and Pixie last spoke. It was a running theme with her friends, Pixie figured. Most of them were big talkers. She was the quiet one but that was a role Pixie was more than happy to play. She'd always like listening better than talking.

"So, what's new?" Chian asked, as she and Pixie sat down in the officer's mess hall with trays of actual solid food in front of them.

For a brief second, Pixie wondered if Chian knew something she did not. There had to be a reason why Chian had ended her running commentary so abruptly. With a shrug, she decided that she was just being paranoid. Maybe Chian had just stopped because she and Pixie were seated now. Maybe she'd been waiting for them to be sitting down before Pixie started her own tale of what she'd been up to.

Pixie tried not to sigh or look annoyed as she told Chian the same story she'd told Aisling and Rain. Everything from what she'd done to a police officer turning into an Agent to how she'd helped free and rebuild Eurisko to, blushing a bit as she brought it up, the secret conversation she and Wheeler had. Just to get Chian up to speed, she added the strange fact that both Aisling and Rain had asked her if she'd be bringing Wheeler around later, despite the fact she knew she was in for a ribbing now that she mentioned that small fact.

"As smart as you are, Pix, that's as blind as you are," Chian blurted, around a very pleased sounding chuckle.

Pixie had no idea what Chian was talking about. She wasn't entirely sure what she wasn't seeing, since the blind comment had to relate to something she wasn't seeing in some situation.

"What are you talking about?" Pixie asked, her tone managing to fit just how confused she looked at the moment.

"You don't see it," the older female mumbled, speaking more to herself than to Pixie though her tone was loud enough such that Pixie heard her too, "I can't believe you don't see it!"

"Don't see what?" Pixie questioned, her tone still showing just how confused she really was.

"He's got it bad for you, Pix," Chain informed her, "And you're the only one who doesn't see it. Come on, I see it and I'm just hearing about what he's done from you."  
"He being Wheeler?" Pixie asked, "You must be kidding; he and I are just friends. That's all we are. Just friends! Maybe best friends but that's about it."

Chain laughed and mumbled something about kids, even though she was just a few years older than Pixie. Apparently, Pixie, for all her smarts, was the only one who wasn't seeing what was going on. She was stuck on the fact she and Wheeler were platonic friends. That fact was all well and good- She was glad Pixie had a good friend like Wheeler. - but it seemed obvious to Chian that something else was brewing.

The older female figured that it was best Pixie know what was going on before a rather disconcerting surprise was sprung on her. She knew Pixie was more comfortable with facts than surprises. It was high time she saw the facts of the situation.

At least the facts as Chian saw them.

"No, Hawk. Of course, I mean Wheeler. He's nearly said it himself. That's what he meant when he said he'd be out you. He's so far gone, it's not funny," Chain told Pixie.

"You're crazy, Chian, stark raving out of your mind. Maybe you're just projecting how you feel for Sparks on someone else," Pixie said, panic creeping into her voice.

Though she was not a child, by any means, she had no inkling about love. Love, to her, was just a word that was associated with the release of certain neurotransmitters in the brain. Those were the facts about love.

Of course, Pixie understood that there were feelings that brought on the release of said neurotransmitters. There in lay the problem. She wasn't sure how to tell if someone harbored such strong feelings about her. There weren't uploads to tell her about such things. There was nothing here to tell her what the signs of someone liking her were. Nothing except the observant friend sitting across from her.

"Let's just leave Sparks and I out of this for now," Chian said, not allowing Pixie to deter her from the topic at hand, "I'm having dinner with him tonight. I'm not crazy, Pix. It's all right in front of your face. I'm amazed you've missed it for this long"

"What am I missing?" Pixie asked.

"I've seen the way he looks at you, the way he can make you comfortable in any situation. He got you to dance that night at the Temple Gathering and I saw how uncomfortable you looked when you first got out there. There's just something between you two that I can't place. Even I know he's head over heels for you," Chian answered.

Pixie squirmed, suddenly uncomfortable under her friend's gaze. This whole topic was making her uncomfortable. The nature of her relationship with Wheeler had never been defined like her relationships with her other male friends. She and Mouse, just like she and Adoh, were just friends. Hawk was an enemy of sorts and the older males she worked with on the ship were her superiors.

"I don't know," Pixie commented, shrugging, "I mean, I just figured we were really good friends at that was how really good friends were supposed to act."

Chain gave her a knowing smile. She'd noticed a certain someone standing around the officer's mess hall, looking around the crowd as if trying to locate someone. Chian couldn't have asked for better timing. It was almost as if she'd planned something to happen.

"Sometimes, Pix, you have to let go of the logic and look at what's standing right in front of you. Speaking of, you and I are going to have to continue this conversation later. I think there's someone here looking for you," she commented, getting up and leaving Pixie at the metallic table all by her lonesome.

(AN: Sorry about the lack of lyrics this time! The piece is instrumental and from Howard Shore's score to _Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring_.)


	8. Golden Years

AN: Hey everyone out there! What's going on? Hope everyone's enjoying the ride. I apologize if things seem a bit slow and rather sucky now. I promise things will get better and more action orientated soon. The "Matrixy" action will return shortly! This is just a small look into the misadventures of Pixie and her friends in Zion. Anywho, I hope everyone's having a good time doing whatever it is you're doing. I'm, at the moment, trying to work on a fashion show my Girl Scout Troop is doing. We're donating the money we make from the fashion show to the Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF)! It should be a good time…I just hope everyone comes through with what they're supposed to be doing! Please, let me know how I'm doing here! I'm always open to any and all comments- good, bad, or indifferent. I just want to know what everyone things of my little misadventure.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own The Matrix, The Animatrix, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and in graduate school studying biology. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"In walked luck and you looked in time

Never look back, walk tall, act fine

Come get up my baby" (from "Golden Years" by David Bowie)

Pixie watched Chian walk off, almost knowing without seeing that the older female was wearing one of her most self satisfied smiles on her face. She might have been one of Pixie's friends- As Chian often pointed out, she thought of Pixie as a sister of sorts even though they weren't really related- but she did seem to enjoy driving Pixie out of her mind. Case in point, she seemed to enjoy throwing wrenches into Pixie's thoughts by presenting her with things she wouldn't normally think.

Chian's entire litany about Wheeler having feeling for her that weren't exactly platonic was a good example. Pixie and Wheeler were friends, that much was obvious, and Pixie never thought of them being anything more. They couldn't be anything more because of their friendship.

At least, that's how Pixie saw things. She figured that, in this situation, it was her point of view that counted. Maybe people could read other things into the friendship she and Wheeler had forged between their time in the Matrix and their time in Zion but it was, ultimately, their opinion that counted. It was the two of them who decided if they were friends or something else.

Still, Pixie couldn't convince a small part of her mind, a small niggling square patch of her brain, that Chain had been wrong. There was a small part of her mind- the part that was still immature and reveled in acting like a foolish teenager even though Pixie was nearly out of her teen years- that was convinced Chian was right. That there was something more to the relationship she had with Wheeler.

It was this part of her mind that she was trying to silence when Pixie felt that someone was watching her. For whatever reason, she felt that someone was staring at her, watching her think. Pixie wanted to say it was a sort of sixth sense she'd developed during her recent wanderings through the Matrix but she didn't think that was true. Her senses weren't that attuned to the world around her. Not in Zion and, especially, not in the Matrix.

Maybe, instead of the sixth sense some of those she worked with seemed to have, it was just that feeling people got when they were staring at. The feeling she, sometimes, imagined single celled organisms had when being watched under a microscope. If single celled organisms had feeling at all. Sometimes it wasn't good to give human qualities and feelings to things that weren't supposed to have them.

That was probably the reason why the Agents in the Matrix had no, apparent, human emotions. Machines- and the programs that they created- weren't supposed to be able to feel as humans did. Probably thought it made them weak or something to that effect. Either way, it was the best analogy Pixie could come up with. She felt like she was being observed by someone else.

Pixie looked up; her mind almost entirely back on the moment at hand instead of wandering through the tricky maze of thoughts Chian had created in her mind and noticed that she was, indeed, being stared at. The odd thing was that she recognized the person watching her. For whatever reason he had- Pixie was no mind reader- he wasn't saying anything to her. He was just watching her mull things over in her head.

"Is this seat taken? I don't want to intrude if you're waiting for someone else," asked the person who'd provided Pixie with the strange feeling of being watched.

A small smile, a happy smile, actually, crossed Pixie's face as she heard the familiar voice of the person standing next to her table. At least now she wasn't going to have to look for Wheeler- the figure that had been watching her- since he'd come along and found her first.

That was a stroke of luck, really, because Pixie had no idea where to find Wheeler in Zion. She was almost sure that she wouldn't have been able to find him before she had to meet Aisling and the others back at her place. Now that he'd found her, the problem was solved.

Sort of, anyway.

The conversation Chian had left her thinking about what still wandering through her head. Since Wheeler had played a distinct- if unknowing- role in said conversation, having him sit with her so soon after might not have been the best of situations. Still, Pixie couldn't just tell him to go away. That not only would have been mean and cold. Since she and Wheeler were friends, that much she was sure of, Pixie wasn't about to tell him to go away.

"No…no one's sitting there and I'm not waiting for anyone, Wheeler," she answered, giving the scruffy blond male a friendly sort of smile.

"Fancy bumping into you here, Pix," Wheeler commented, taking the seat across from Pixie, "I didn't know you'd gotten back into Zion"

Though he was sitting across from her and trying to strike up a conversation with her, Pixie was doing her best to avoid looking Wheeler directly in the eyes. She feared that, if he managed to catch her brandy brown eyes with his bright hazel gaze, her cheeks would turn an unflattering shade of red. Then he'd ask what was wrong and she'd have to tell him about the conversation.

There was no way around it because Pixie had never been good at bluffing. He'd catch her in a well meaning lie and she'd still be forced to admit what Chian had said.

Better for her not to meet his eyes. At least there was nothing unusual about that where she was concerned. Pixie usually kept her eyes on something else when she talked to people.

"Are you feelings any better?" he asked, recalling the rough state she had been in a few nights earlier and making another attempt at a conversation between the two of them, "Not feeling so sad now, are you?"

He noticed, as he started eating what amounted to a snack in Zion, that Pixie seemed uncomfortable but he assumed it was from what she'd gone through with her confrontation with the Agent prior to Eurisko's freeing. Being a medic-in-training, taking care of people and keeping them alive, was something Wheeler knew Pixie prided herself on.

Doing something that went against that was, most likely, hard for her. At least, that's what Wheeler assumed, anyway. He didn't know why- call it a gut feeling- but he knew that for a fact. He knew Pixie would be bothered by what she did because it went against not only her training but her sense of self.

One couldn't both be responsible for saving lives and taking them away at the same time. Those were, definitely, opposite sides of the coin.

"I think I'm better now. I mean, I'm trying not to think about what happened and focus on all the other, good stuff that's going on but…" Pixie answered, offering a lame shrug as the only end to her sentence.

She wasn't really sure what to say to Wheeler, other than she was really trying to stay on the positive side of things. She wasn't trying to dwell on what happened because she wanted to be able to sleep at night. Sometimes that was easier said than done.

"Well, I'm sure being back in Zion is going to help. I mean, there are a lot of us here that are around to keep your mind busy," Wheeler pointed out with a friendly sort of smile.

Pixie wanted to say something to the effect of "You don't know how true that is" but that would have opened her up to too many ugly questions. It was enough that she knew that Wheeler was speaking the truth. Her friends in Zion seemed to be the perfect cure for her still bothered mind. Though, that cure might have been a little more dangerous, what with friends like Chian and Aisling and all. They'd give her new things to think about, new thoughts to set her mind spinning.

"You're right," Pixie stated, agreeing with Wheeler, "I like my job on the ship and everything but sometimes there are days when it's not all that fun being cooped up on a ship."

"Especially with Hawk on board," Wheeler stated, almost stated the other's male name like it was a curse word of some kind.

Giving Pixie a good once over, he added "He hasn't done anything to you, has he? Hit you upside the head with something in a training session, maybe"

Wheeler and Hawk had never seen eye to eye, going as far back as their days in the orphanage together. Pixie wasn't entirely sure why that happened. For quite some time- Before Hawk taking his rather angry leave from what she thought was their friendship a few years prior- Pixie had wanted the two of them to get along. After all, she didn't really relish playing the role of middle...person…between the two of them. That and she wanted her friends, such as they were at the time, to get along.

Her attempts hadn't worked, much to her chagrin then. Now, she figured it was a good thing. Though she and Hawk had an uneasy truce between themselves, since they lived and worked in close quarters and neither of them wanted to lose their job, Pixie was sort of glad she didn't have to see him outside of the ship the two of them worked on. If Hawk and Wheeler had become friends- and stayed that way after what had happened between him and Pixie- that might not have happened. She might have had to see Hawk outside of a work situation. If that was the case, the medic-in-training wasn't sure their little truce would hold. Pixie had a funny feeling that it wouldn't.

After looking around the wide room just to be sure that Hawk wasn't anywhere around, Pixie shook her head and answered, "Aside from a few off color jokes, he's being civil. I'm not sure if he thinks that if he starts acting up again he'll have to do more work or Trinity or Switch might get it into their heads to spar him or something"

The pair lapsed into an uneasy silence. It wasn't, by any stretch of the imagination a first for the two of them. It seemed like, for the longest time, the two of them sat in an uneasy sort of silence. That had been a long time ago, though, or, at the very least, it seemed like it was a long time ago. Once the two of them became good friends, that changed and the uneasy silences disappeared.

Though she was trying to force them to be quite, her mind was busy replaying Chian's words in a loop. The more she tried not to think about them, the louder they became.

The problem was that it was Wheeler sitting across from her. He was her friend, her pal, her buddy. Then again, he was a good listener, allowing her to talk to him for as long as she wanted, and he seemed to genuinely care about her. She figured that was what friends did for one another, though. The listened and they cared. Those seemed to be hallmarks of a good, healthy friendship.

"Snap out of it Pix. This is one of your best friends you're thinking about here," she chided herself.

Unbidden, and most certainly unwanted now, the words of the Oracle entered her mind. The old woman had said that someone had liked her for a very long time and that he was scared to say anything about it. She tried not to think of Wheeler in that role but his nervous expression told her otherwise.

Whatever he was thinking about seemed to make him about as uneasy as she was. His, normally, genial and open expression seemed to be more thoughtful now. It was almost as if he was considering what he wanted to say next, except what he wanted to say next appeared to be something very serious.

"So," Pixie began, trailing off when she couldn't think of anything to say.

The lull in the conversation, once a small crack, was started to spread into a wide and uncomfortable gulf. A gulf that seemed to grow in both size and depth as the moments passed. As it grew, it threatened to swallow both Pixie and Wheeler whole.

"How about you come up to Rain's with me for diner?" Pixie suggested, fishing for something, anything to say and coming up with the offer she was supposed to make, "Aisling and the others are coming too. It wouldn't be nice to leave you out."

"That is," she, hastily added, "if you're not busy. I don't want you to change your plans on my account. I'm sure everyone will understand if you have something to do. We could all get together another time or something."

Wheeler thought for a moment, chewing as he did so. A relieved expression crossed his face for reasons Pixie didn't really understand. He seemed glad that he didn't really have to think all that hard for the next direction their conversation was supposed to take.

"Nope, nothing to do. I'd love to come to Rain's with you," he replied, making Pixie smile though she wasn't quite sure why she was, "I haven't seen Aisling, and the rest of them in a while. It'll be nice to get together like old times."

Part of Pixie wished things were like "old times," as Wheeler called them. At least, then, she didn't have to deal with thoughts put in her head by Chian and the Oracle. Things seemed to be a whole lot simpler back then. She and Wheeler could be just friends and that was that.

Now, well, Pixie wasn't sure what she was going to do. Maybe, once she was around the others, Chian's comments and the Oracle's words would fade into the background.

A girl could hope, right?


	9. This Kiss

AN: Welcome, Welcome! Welcome back to this little misadventure, anyone who's still out there reading this! I hope everyone out there is enjoying the misadventures of a young woman named after a fairy (though she lacks wings), a former baseball player (though it was only up until the high school level), and their mixed bunch of friends. I know I'm enjoying writing it! Well, most of the story's written but a lot of it is being put back together. I've lost copies of this story my times than I can count, especially this part, actually. Maybe there's something behind that! Some reason why this part of the story tends to disappear more often than any other part of this little misadventure. I don't know! Anywho, I hope you're all enjoying whatever it is you're up to! I'm bouncing between school, getting ready to take my Master's Exam, the fashion show my Girl Scout troop's planning, and, of course, dancing! Pretty please, let me know what you think about this chapter. I'm open to any and all comments….good, bad, or indifferent!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own The Matrix, The Animatrix, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and in graduate school studying biology. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"It's a feeling like this

It's centrifugal motion

It's perpetual bliss

It's that pivotal moment

It's impossible

This kiss…" (from "This Kiss" by Faith Hill)

The young woman had to admit that spending the evening with her friends and adopted family was what she needed. It took her mind of off everything that had happened and made her smile. Well, except for the fact Aisling brought Conall along with her. That made her a bit nervous, to tell the truth.  
P

ixie wasn't exactly sure where Aisling had met Conall since Pixie didn't recall ever hanging out with the boy during her days in the Academy. She had a vague memory or two of him, possibly, being in one or more of her classes but that was about it. She'd never talked to him or anything like that. Actually, unless she had friends in her class, Pixie rarely spoke to anyone in her lessons. She could never pluck up the courage to do so for some reason.

Either way, Conall seemed to have become a member of their little group by virtue of him, for lack of a better word, dating Aisling. They seemed to be a rather close pair, though, that was none of Pixie's concern. Aisling was a big girl; she could do as she pleased. Sure she was happy for her friend- just like Pixie figured Aisling would be happy for her if she did something great- it was just that Conall and Wheeler didn't seem to like each other.

Like each other as friends, anyway. Both seemed to annoy each other but, in Pixie's eyes, it was very unlike the tension between Hawk and Wheeler. Hawk and Wheeler just didn't get along because Wheeler didn't like how Hawk treated people and Hawk, well, he just didn't like Wheeler for some reason. This was different for some reason but Pixie couldn't put her finger on why. She just sort of knew it was, felt it in both her head and her gut.

Pixie was loath to have the night end but she knew it had to. Everyone had to get back to their own lives and their own jobs. Sitting back and having fun wasn't really the order of the day anymore. Everyone had responsibilities now.

"You don't really have to walk me back to my place Wheeler," Pixie protested, as they made their way along the catwalks that made up the sidewalks of Zion, "I know how to get home and I don't think anything's going to happen to me."

Everyone had parted ways outside of Rain's home, thanking her for the meal and promising to call her soon. Well, the latter was more Pixie than anyone else. After all, Rain had adopted her and Pixie figured she owed it to her mother-figure to stay in touch. It seemed like the kind and proper thing to do.

Though it was out of his way- Pixie knew that much was true- Wheeler had insisted that he had to walk her back. Normally, she didn't mind spending time with Wheeler. He was a good, true friend. She like talking to him about anything and everything. Everything including her past in the Matrix. She hadn't told him the whole story- Pixie still wasn't sure if she wanted to tell anyone about her entire past in the Matrix or just forget it and let it fade into her past. - but he knew more than the others. Her logical mind was screaming at her not to reveal too much of her past but, some other part of her mind, was telling her it was alright to share. Wheeler was a person she could trust and he wasn't going to use her past against her. What's more, he wouldn't tell the others what she told him. He'd kept her secrets safe.

Tonight, and mostly thanks to Chian's words and comments made during her time with Rain, Torrent, Eli and her friends, Pixie found herself uncomfortable around her friend. She was having trouble looking at him without blushing and, away from the noise and distractions her friends and adopted family provided, her mind went back to mulling over the ideas they'd planted there. Ideas that maybe, just maybe, Wheeler liked her as more than just a friend.

To Pixie, it seemed that they were taking the long way back to her home because the young woman felt they had been walking forever. It never took her this long to get back home. It might have just been her imagination, though, the fact it seemed to be taking so long to get back. This odd discomfort-that-wasn't-really-discomfort she was feeling was wreaking havoc in her head and causing an uncomfortable silence to grow between her and Wheeler.

"I'd forgotten that Rain was that good of a cook," Wheeler commented, breaking the silence between them, "Natasa was never that good of a cook. I remember back during our Academy days, I use to look forward to when we all studied at Rain's house. At least I knew I was going to get something good to eat and I got to know you. That was fun too."

Pixie gave a short laugh, almost glad that Wheeler had the nerve to break the silence that had started to grow between them. It had been fun, back then, studying at Rain's. They'd all sit around, sometimes on the floor, sometimes not, trying to get through whatever work they had to do. Sometimes it would be all of them- even Hawk before he departed- and sometimes it had been just her and Wheeler.

It had been back then, in those arguably simpler days, that Pixie had started sharing stories about her past. Just little things, really, about her time with her aunt and uncle or her days as a ward of the state. She might have told him one or two of her hospital tales but never the worst of it.

Wheeler, as always, was a good listener. He hardly ever interrupted her, letting her get on with her stories, unless he had questions for her. It wasn't that he remained silent, though. Wheeler had stories of his own to share. Pixie remembered sitting and listening, with rapt attention, as he regaled her with stories about his town and the baseball games he'd pitched.

Oddly enough, Wheeler never talked Natasa, even now. All Pixie knew about her was that she worked with metals and believed strongly in the idea that objects could protect people. It had been Natasa who urged Wheeler to give Pixie the charm she wore around her neck; both in the Matrix- Somehow it had become part of her normal Matrix clothing. - and in the Real World for her eighteenth birthday. It seemed silly to believe that a little object could protect her but Pixie still wore it every day.

She figured that, in her line of work, she needed every advantage she could get. Including those of the more mystical nature, even if she wasn't sure she believed in it. Still, Pixie believed that it was probably worse to tempt fate by not wearing it.

If the fairy she wore didn't give her any advantage, wearing it wasn't going to hurt her. Not wearing, and finding out that it provided some sort of protection, might hurt just a little. Best just to wear it and not mess around with fate.

Besides, wearing it reminded her of Wheeler. Just having something Wheeler gave her- especially when it was something that she could hide under her clothing and not be forced to answer questions about what it was and where it came from- made her feel better. It was like having her friend with her even though they were separated by space and time.

"I guess she's had a lot of time to practice. What surprised me is that she was actually on a ship. I lived with her for a while and she never talked about her working on a ship. Kind of odd, really. I'm sure she has her reasons, though," Pixie pointed out.

"Maybe something happened to her or her crew. Something she doesn't want to talk about in front of the lot of us and Eli," Wheeler added a thoughtful look on his face.

Wearing a very mischievous smirk, Pixie stated, "Well, Rain did tell us she use to work on a ship called the _Edge of Victory_. Maybe I'll just go and look up what happened to the ship. It's not all that hard"

The scruffy blond male did a double take, looking at Pixie for a long moment before understanding what he was seeing. It wasn't what she was saying that caught him off guard- Wheeler knew that Pixie had a curious mind. She had to in order to get herself out of the Matrix. - but the look she was wearing. A certain sort of realization set in as he looked at the crafty expression Pixie was wearing on her elfy looking face.

"So that's why you call yourself Pixie," Wheeler noted, almost laughing to himself for not realizing it sooner.

"What do you mean?" Pixie questioned, pausing her steps and turning slightly to face Wheeler but keeping her eyes staring someplace over his left shoulder.

"When you smiled like that. I never realized it before but you really do look kind of like a…well…a pixie. Not that it's a bad thing of course," he answered, speaking very quickly.

Wheeler realized that pointing out the fact Pixie bore a slight resemblance to a mythological creature might not have been the brightest thing to do. He wasn't sure if it was offensive or not to say such a thing. It was just what he figured.

The funny thing was, Wheeler decided it wasn't a bad thing, the fact Pixie looked like her namesake. It was sort of funny, actually, because it was really fitting.

He just hoped Pixie saw it that way. He'd never seen her angry and Wheeler really didn't want to see that. Pixie was quiet and there was the old Matrix expression that read "Tis the quiets ones to watch out for." He wasn't exactly sure what that expression really meant but Pixie was quiet and he wanted to watch out for making her angry…just in case.

Oddly enough, Pixie didn't look angry. As a matter of fact, she looked like she was use to hearing such comments.

"That's, actually, kind of why I was given the name 'Pixie.' My aunt and uncle use to call me 'elf' and 'pixie' when I was a kid but they always said it like it was a bad thing. Then Hawk brought it up when we were working out a hacker name for me. For some reason, I thought it fit so I took it as my name," Pixie stated.

With a small giggle, she added, "Pixie is an improvement over what he wanted to call me. Hawk was initially going to have me call myself rabbit but I nipped that idea in the bud. It was too weird to share a name with a hawk's prey."

"Hawk named you?" Wheeler asked, sounding rather incredulous, "Why in the world would you let him do something like that"

It didn't really make any sense to Wheeler. Pixie was one of- if not the- smartest person he knew. It seemed odd that she'd allow someone like Hawk to name her. Wheeler was still trying to figure out just how Pixie and Hawk ever were friends in the Matrix. That also seemed sort of odd.

Hawk, in his opinion, was one of those people who used and abused others to get to his own ends. He couldn't be anything else in Wheeler's mind. Not after the display he'd put on when breaking himself out of their small circle of friends and the one the night of their Gathering when he'd tried to get Pixie to dance with him. Wheeler had been taught, as a boy in the Matrix, that you weren't supposed to treat females like that. Anyone who did was a coward or worse.

"You know he and I use to be friends or whatever the Matrix told us we were back before we were both freed. I guess I felt it was his place to give me my name since he was teaching me the basics," she replied.

It still seemed strange to Wheeler but, at least, it made a bit more sense now. Pixie had allowed Hawk to name her because she felt it was right for him to do so. Sort of like parents naming their kids because they brought them into the world…err….the Matrix. Pixie had allowed Hawk to name her because he'd brought her into the hacker's world.

Still wearing her mischievous little smile, Pixie brought up, "Why Wheeler?"

The scruffy looking young man gave Pixie a sheepish sort of smile. He still felt the reasons for choosing his own moniker were sort of silly. After all, he'd started off hating the name he'd, eventually, take as his hacker name.  
"

Back home in Arcadia, Texas, my baseball team nicknamed me Wheeler because I use to just sort of wheel back and throw left handed fastballs. I hated that name for a long time but I figured it would make an alright hacker name. Best nickname I could think of," Wheeler answered with a shrug.

Pixie laughed a bit, successfully imagining her scruffy haired friend as a baseball player. The image of him, standing on a mound in the middle of a field, was easy enough for her to conjure. It seemed fitting for him to be a baseball player. She'd never played much baseball but knew a fair few things about it from watching the games on television.

"I use to watch baseball back in the Matrix. Never went to a game in person, of course, but I saw the games on television. I don't pretend to be an expert or anything but I really did like watching it. Especially the pitchers," Pixie admitted.

That was something Wheeler hadn't been expecting to hear. Pixie, all bookish and quiet, didn't exactly look like the type to enjoy a loud and sometimes chaotic game like baseball.

"The pitchers?" he asked, stunned, "Why them?"

Pixie shrugged, starting to walk again, and replied, "I don't really know. I just always found them fascinating. As if they had the hardest job on the team. I mean, sure home runs are impressive but nothing's more fun than watching a well pitched baseball game."

Wheeler laughed- a surprised sort of sound- and agreed, "There's nothing more than any of us pitchers like than a well pitched game, especially when we're the ones doing the pitching. Getting beat up on the mound is absolutely no fun. It's embarrassing, really, more than anything else."

The two discussed Wheeler's sport of choice for a time, bringing back some of the old comfort that had existed between them before everyone put their two cents in. Pixie found that time passed more quickly when they spoke in comfortable conditions. It just seemed to be easier to be friends with Wheeler.

Yet another reason why Chian and the others were wrong. She and Wheeler made better friends than anything else. Not being friends, being something more, would take away the comfort between them. That was something Pixie was almost unwilling to lose.

"Someday, maybe after the war and stuff, I'd like to start a baseball league here," Wheeler, dreamily, commented as he stopped short in front of Pixie's bright red door.

Pixie had to admit that was something she'd never even thought of and commented, "That might be interesting, considering we have no grass here for an outfield."

Her comment elicited some nervous sounding laughter from Wheeler. The same sort of laughter that started to bubble out of her. The pair of the stood in front of Pixie's red door, acting almost as if neither of them knew what to do next. Something had changed, bringing back the nervous feelings of not quite discomfort from before.

"So," she said, stammering a bit, "um...thanks for walking me hom.e"

"No problem," he said, "it's what us gentlemen do."

Pixie found herself at a loss for words, one of her arms slipping behind her to find the wheel that opened the door to her small home. Part of her wanted to run away, go back inside where she could be safe. Another part of her just wanted to stand out here with Wheeler and, maybe, try to figure out just what was going on between them. The latter was the part Pixie ignored.

She turned to slip into her home, but found that Wheeler was still staring at her. His hands were clasped behind his back, his posture showing that he was a bit nervous about something. Not exactly normal for Wheeler to say the least. Usually she was the nervous one and he was the relaxed one. The one who was comfortable in any situation. "

What's wrong?" Pixie asked, giving Wheeler an odd but concerned look, "Are you alright?"

Wheeler shifted his weight and gave Pixie a nervous, lop sided smile. He, himself, wasn't sure what was wrong. All he knew was that he and Pixie were getting on as well as they normally did one moment and, the next, it was back to that strange, uncomfortable state between the two of them. Wheeler didn't know what had changed or how it had changed. It just did and it bothered him.

"No…nothing. I'm alright," he assured her, "Just….nah….I'll talk to you tomorrow."

He took a step towards Pixie, giving her a confused look as she took a step back. He didn't know why she'd stepped away from him and, in truth; she wasn't quite sure why she had either. It just seemed like a natural reaction to someone stepping into one's personal space.

"I guess so. I don't know how long we're going to be in Zion but you're more than welcome to come by tomorrow. I know I'll be here for that long and I don't really have anything else to do," she said, her words coming out in a rush.

"That sounds like a plan," Wheeler countered, putting a hand on Pixie's shoulder and feeling her stiffen a bit at his touch.

The stiffening was an unconscious reaction since he'd never given Pixie a reason to fear him. They both knew he was too much of a "gentleman-" taught at the hand of the father he never really talked about- do something bad to Pixie. Hurting her was the last thing on his mind.

Pixie wasn't sure what had happened to Wheeler. The look in his bright hazel eyes was strange, almost foreign really. She wasn't quite sure how to place it. His hand on her shoulder was strange in the fact it was comfortable but odd all at once. She wasn't sure what he was getting at. Pixie, honestly, thought he wanted to go home.

All at once, Wheeler leaned in towards her and did something she really didn't expect.

He gave her a simple, and very polite, kiss on her lips.


	10. C’est la Vie

AN: Hey Everyone! What's going on? I hope everyone's having a good time doing whatever it is you're doing! I'm not exactly having the best week ever. It's more like one of the busiest weeks I've had in a while. I'm helping to plan a charity fashion show my Girl Scout troop is doing on Friday. All the money we're hoping we make is going to be donated to the Lance Armstrong Foundation for Cancer Research. We figure it's a good cause and, besides that, my sister, mother, and I are big fans of Lance Armstrong. Not just because he's won seven Tour de Frances but because he's an excellent role model and does a lot of good work in the research field through his foundation. On top of that, my darling little sister decided to dump her four midterm papers on me! She's apparently, too busy planning the St. Patrick's Day party her and her friends are going to have to bother doing her homework. Since she doesn't want to flunk out her last semester in college, she'd decided, in her infinite wisdom, to dump all of her homework on me! Plus I have my own work and project to do for my own classes but, hey, I guess she figures I'll work something out. Not exactly the best of situations but I guess I'll figure something out. Anywho, I don't know how many people are out there still reading this story. If anyone is, thanks a bunch! Please, feel free to let me know what you think! I'm always open to new opinions!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own The Matrix, The Animatrix, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and in graduate school studying biology. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"Say you will say you won't

Say you'll do what I don't

Say you're true, say to me c'est la vie…" (from "C'est la Vie" by B'Witched)

Pixie gaped at Wheeler, sort of like a fish out of water, if said fish could affect a disbelieving sort of look on their faces. It was hard for her to comprehend what her friend had done even though she logically knew what had happened. She was just having a very hard time wrapping her mind around it.

Wheeler- the only person within the confines of Zion and, probably, the world as a whole to earn the title of Pixie's best friend- had just kissed her.

The odd thing, the thing that made Pixie almost want to laugh was that it wasn't even a horrible kiss. If anything, it was rather sweet and all together innocent. A simple brush of his lips against her own. Nothing too major or anything horribly rude. Still it was a complete shock to Pixie's system. It was something very out of character for Wheeler, something she never would have expected him to do.

Apparently and despite the fact he'd been the one to kiss her, Wheeler looked sort of shocked- Maybe surprised was a better word for how he looked- himself. His face was staining a bright red color that seemed to be starting from the back of his neck and working its way around from there. He'd stepped away from Pixie, standing closer to the railing than to her door now.

Not that Pixie had taken any steps towards her scruffy looking friend. She was standing a bit closer to the doorway of her home, glancing around in an almost nervous manner. Pixie wasn't keen on making direct eye contact with Wheeler, his bright hazel eyes turning her face a brighter shade of red every time they met with her own brandy brown eyes.

"I'm…I'm…going to go. Yeah, that's a good idea," Wheeler mumbled, half speaking nervously to himself and half speaking to the young woman standing in front of him, "I'll talk to you tomorrow or whenever I guess."

Pixie, at a loss for words and afraid her voice was going to stutter and stammer like Wheeler's, only nodded her head. Once Pixie was sure Wheeler had gone on his way, heading for his own home a few levels down from hers, she stepped into her home, shutting the door behind her.

The young woman leaned back on the door, her head and back resting on the red, metallic surface. It might have been just her imagination acting up but the door felt very cool to the touch, a stark contrast to how warm she felt. Pixie felt like she'd gotten a very bad sunburn. Her entire body felt warm, almost feverish from the pale red blush that spread itself all over her face.

Her eyes slipped closed, a silent wish for the coolness to spread across her body going out to whoever was out there listening to the wishes of the population of Zion. What she needed, Pixie figured, was a moment to think. A second or two or ten to let what happened between her and Wheeler and decide what this meant for her and her scruffy looking best friend.

There was just one small problem with her plan. One tiny little hitch that wasn't allowing her to do what she wanted. A small annoying bump in the road as Pixie tried to figure out just what had happened and just why the world had decided, in that one moment when Wheeler kissed her, to go mad on her.

Pixie's mind seemed to be split into two halves. What's more the halves of her mind were warring against one another.

One part of her mind, the logical part Pixie always listened to, was screaming for her to find someone to talk to, someone to help her understand what had just happened. That part of her mind was having trouble rationalizing the feelings that were coursing through her. It could not understand why her heart was racing and her pulse pounding.

That part of her mind was searching for and not finding a rational explanation as to why her best friend had kissed her and set her head spinning. There must have been someone, within the entire body of Zion, who could interpret these feelings, understand the where and why of what was happening to her.

The other part of her mind was the part she usually kept quiet. It belonged to the teenager she actually was, age wise anyway.

That part of her mind wanted to scream and shout and dance around her small, sparse, and, all together utilitarian, kitchen. There was a boy who liked her and he had kissed her. This part cared little for the fact that she had no idea if she reciprocated the boy's feelings for her. It just was happy that someone liked her.

Putting a metal muzzle on the teenaged part of her mind so she could get some thinking done, Pixie considered what the logical part of her mind wanted her to do. Though she wasn't all the keen on asking for help Pixie knew she'd never be able to work her feelings out of the twisted jumble Wheeler had put them in.

The walls, so to speak, had been breached; reinforcements were necessary.

Her first impulse was to run right back to Rain's. Rain, after all, was the closest thing Pixie had to an actual mother and, on those TV shows she watched while living in the Matrix, mothers were supposed to know how to solve these kinds of problems. Rain had seen her through her years in the Academy and was still playing her mom even though Pixie was living on her own as an, arguably, grown young woman.

Maybe that was why she decided against asking Rain. She didn't want the one person she counted as a mother to think she wasn't able to handle herself and the situations she found herself in. She didn't want to disappoint Rain, in the same way some children didn't want to disappoint his or her parents.

Pixie's thoughts drifted next to the two women she worked alongside with. They too were eliminated, for a variety of reasons. The day's events would not be talked about unless they, somehow, managed to get the story out of Pixie in some way. That being unlikely to happen- Pixie was always careful to keep what could be deemed her "personal life" out of her work situation, the whole mess with Hawk notwithstanding. He'd been the one to drag that into their job.- so Pixie was secure in the fact this story was going to stay quiet.

There was Aisling or Ngaio, her two female friends her own age, but Pixie figured asking them what she should do or say was a dangerous thing. She knew if she asked them for advice she wasn't going to hear the end of it. They'd remind her of it every chance they got about it. This was not exactly her proudest moment, not exactly a span of time Pixie wanted to be reminded of.

With a weary sort of sigh, Pixie wracked her mind for another option. She couldn't talk to Adoh nor would she talk to Mouse. Hawk was a nonentity in this case. He'd never liked Wheeler to begin with and this, certainly, wouldn't help. As a matter of fact, he might do something rash the next time he "happened" to bump into Wheeler.

Her eyes snapped open though, as a laugh bubbled out of her. There was one person she could ask for help. One person who'd pointed who had said that Wheeler was completely head over heels for her. One female who had tried to put everything in perspective for her but Pixie hadn't wanted to hear any of it then.

Looking up at the small digital clock tucked into a natural niche in the wall, Pixie checked the time. It was awfully late- Too late really for her to pay any unsuspecting person a visit- but the need to talk to someone was still there. It wasn't going to go away any time soon.

Besides, Pixie figured Chian wouldn't mind her showing up. It wasn't like Pixie was going to wake her up anyway. After all, if she remembered correctly, Chian was supposed to be doing something Sparks that night. Pixie figured that the Operator would have left and Chian would still be awake, cleaning up or something.  
Pulling away from her red door, Pixie peered out onto the catwalk that served as a side walk. Though she'd seen him leave, Pixie was just checking to make sure Wheeler had really gone back to his own home. She wasn't keen of having to face him right now. She knew she had to eventually but now was not the time.

Not seeing Wheeler, Pixie set of for Chian's home at a fast jog. She wasn't exactly full out running but she wasn't exactly walking quickly either. Pixie was moving somewhere in between the two.

Her friend's home was not very far from her own small home so Pixie got there rather quickly. Like every other door in Zion, Chian's was red in color and virtually indistinguishable from its neighbors. Pixie knew it was her friend's door, though, since she'd had the occasion to visit more than once. Closing her fist, Pixie banged on the door as hard as she possibly could. Several times with no answer later, Pixie gave the door a very odd look. With an absent minded shrug and the need for an ear to bend and to have her feelings explained to her, Pixie tried the wheel that acted in place of a door knob.

Much to her surprise, the door was wide open. Pixie took that to mean her friend was still awake and someplace in her home. After all, those who came out of the Matrix still had a propensity to lock their doors at night. One of those ingrained habits some Matrix born individuals still had.

Like a shadow, Pixie slipped into her friend's home. All thoughts of her friend being awake and cleaning up after her dinner with Sparks were banished in that moment. The room was a mess, with mismatched dishes and cups still on the table and in the basin that served as a sink.

"Maybe she's asleep?" Pixie wondered, mumbling to herself because the space around her was just too quiet.

Glancing around the rather messy space- Pixie had never known Chian to be this slovenly- Pixie noticed that there were boots piled on the floor near the battered couch. Two boots belonged to her friend; she recognized them as the ones she always wore. The other two were unfamiliar. They were larger in size and were a bit blacker then Chian's, if that was at all possible.

Unsure of what to do, whether or not she should stick around, Pixie called, "Anyone home? Anyone here?"

Her voice sounded small and unsure, in her own head, but she'd shouted as loud as she possibly could. Still she got no reply. The door had been opened, there was a mess everywhere and, yet no one seemed to be around. Though she'd come looking for someone to talk to and help her sort out her own feelings- It sounded strange in her head, no matter what angle she came at it from.- she suddenly became concerned for her friend. Something seemed to be amiss in the situation she'd wandered into.

Not thinking of anything else except the well being of a friend- Even though Chian was more like the older sister she'd never had. - and almost glad to have something else to dwell on, Pixie decided to see if her friend was in bed. Maybe she'd gone to sleep without cleaning up or locking up or something. People, including her, could be forgetful from time to time.

Clearing her throat in order to give Chian some warning, Pixie stepped around the rain cloud gray curtain that separated the bedroom area from the rest of the space.

Moments later, the young woman made a sound like a mouse being stepped on and fled back to her own home, mentally berating herself the entire time. She was, hypothetically, old enough to be able to handle her own feelings. There was no need for her to go and seek another person's help. That was foolish of her, no matter how badly she thought she needed someone to talk to.

It was best she try to handle things on her own. At least, that's what she decided as she fled back to her own home, to her own room with her own thoughts chasing each other in circles in her head.


	11. I'll Be There For You

AN: Sorry, everyone who's still out there reading this, for the fact this update is late. It's been sort of crazy for me between midterms and some of the Girl Scout craziness. We had our charity fashion show last Friday and I'm glad to say that we made a great sum of money to donate to the Lance Armstrong Foundation! The kids in the troop had a really good time pretending to be America's Next Top Model. The little kids especially! Everyone who came commented on how funny they were because they were so serious about being models. It was a good time but we're already working on our next big fund raiser! That being, the troop talent show! Anywho, thanks to everyone who's out there and still reading this. You're all awesome!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own The Matrix, The Animatrix, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and in graduate school studying biology. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"Your mother warned you there'd be days like these

Oh but she didn't tell you when the world has brought

You down to your knees that...

I'll be there for you

When the rain starts to pour

I'll be there for you

Like I've been there before

I'll be there for you

'Cuz you're there for me too..." (From "I'll Be There For You" by The Rembrandts)

Pixie's mind was busy, swirling with thoughts she wished she could banish out of her head. It was a funny thing, though, because Pixie really liked to think. It was something of a hobby for the long haired medic-in-training. At the moment, though, she wished she couldn't think. She wished she could silence the thoughts in her head, get her mind to settle itself down and stop trying to puzzle out her own feelings and the ones she assumed Wheeler had for her. The ones that caused him to kiss her.

At least the world decided it liked her for a brief moment. There was a knock at the door of her small home. The sound- A loud, insistent banging instead of the meeky sort of knock she used. - was loud enough to break the hold her thoughts had on her.

"It's open," Pixie very nearly shouted, speaking from the presumably safe confines of her own bedroom.

It was an old tactic Pixie was using at the moment. Something she hadn't done since her days as a failing battery living in the Matrix. An escapist tactic that she'd adopted back when she was very young.

It was something she hadn't done in years. She'd given up doing it when she started hacking and hadn't even considered doing it once she'd been freed from the confines of the Matrix. There's been no reason to do it, until now.

Pixie was hiding from the world. She was in her room, under the covers of her bed- A bed that was neatly tucked into a natural alcove in the wall and a bit bigger than necessary for one smallish person- trying not to think about anything. It was funny, the more she tried to not think, the more thinking she did.

Her hiding, when she lived in the Matrix was for good reason. There, she was hiding from the truth; hiding from the fact she was dying and hiding from the knowledge she had acquired about her world.

Now her reason for hiding sounded silly and empty, even to her. She was hiding just because she didn't want to have to deal with the world around her. She wanted nothing to do with her feelings and the person who'd turned her calm world into a topsy-turvy mess.

Pixie heard the creaky sound her door made as it opened on its rusty hinges, followed by the same sound as the door closed behind the person who'd entered her home. Boots crunched along her floor as the person wandered around the sparse but neat space that served as her kitchen, among other things. The walking sound stopped for a moment and Pixie got the mental image of a person just looking around the space, maybe trying to locate her or just because they wanted to look.

"Pix, you alive?" called a concerned voice that Pixie recognized as belonging to Chian.

Pixie, still hiding in her room, felt her face turn a bit redder. She'd made the mistake of calling on her friend to help her figure out what was going on and had wound up being more than a little embarrassed for doing so. It was, in Pixie's mind, a reminder of why she never asked for help. It never turned out well.

All she could manage was a small, squeaky sort of sound. A variation on the mousy sort of sound she'd made before.

"Where are you hiding, kid?" Chian asked, noticing that Pixie wasn't in the room.

The room, itself, was trademark Pixie but the owner of the space, herself, wasn't present. There weren't many places for Pixie to hide but, still, Chian didn't want to scare the younger female. Something had to be wrong if Pixie had sought her out at an inhumanly late hour of the night. It had to be important otherwise Pixie would have waited until what passed for morning in Zion to hunt her down to talk.

"Back here, my room," Pixie responded, finding her voice and using it.

The sound of walking returned as Chian meandered her way through the heavy orange and blue dyed curtain that blocked Pixie's room from the rest of the small space Pixie called home. Where some didn't bother with such an odd looking door, Pixie didn't want her friends wandering into her bedroom. It didn't work as well as a locked door but it served its purpose most of the time.

Chian found Pixie lying in her bed, back to the rest of the room. Since her legs were nowhere to be seen and her back was slightly rounded, the older female had to assume that they were pulled into Pixie's chest. Such a feat was likely as Pixie was rather bendy or, at the very least, was more acrobatic that Chian was herself.

Hearing someone enter space, Pixie rolled away from the wall and pushed herself into a sitting position. She left her knees pulled into her chest and her arms wrapped around said knees. Her head rest at the tops of her knees; her eyes finding everything else except her friend interesting.

Chian, not waiting for an invitation, took a seat at the edge of the foot of Pixie's bed. Whatever was wrong with her friend- Well, technically, her little sister, since that was how Chian thought of Pixie. - had to be a something not health related. Other than a very red face, which might be considered a sign of fever if the older female remembered correctly, Pixie looked to be her normal, healthy, self.

For a long moment, there was a heavy silence between the pair. The sort of silence that came from not knowing where to start talking mixed with a good bit of embarrassment to flavor.

"I'm sorry I came by. I just was looking for something. I shouldn't have come in. It was rude of me. I hope you're not mad," Pixie said, speaking in a rush and staring down at the beat up cover on her bed.

To Pixie's mild surprise, Chian started to laugh. That threw Pixie further into confusion. Laughing was the last thing the young woman figured her friend would be doing. In all actuality, she'd assumed her friend would be mad at her for what she'd done. She'd obviously interrupted a private moment, something that a good friend shouldn't have done.

"I'm not laughing at you, Pix," Chian pointed out, making a concerted effort to control the laughter that was spilling out of her, "it's just that Sparks saw you when you came in and, for all his bluster, he was more embarrassed than you were. What were you looking for?"

"Something happened and I'm all confused. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about something anymore," Pixie, still speaking in a rushed tone, answered.

Giving Pixie a withering look, Chian threatened, "Being vague isn't going to help you any. Either open up that word horde and tell me what happened or I'm going to get going."

It wasn't the nicest thing to do, Chian knew, but it needed to be said. Pixie was taken aback by her friend's pronouncement. She didn't expect Chian to say something like that. Though, Chian was a fan of good natured teasing, she'd never been outright mean to her.

Actually, Pixie recalled Chian telling her she'd never be outright mean to her. Something about teasing being part of how sibling relationships functioned- Pixie didn't quite understand that since she was an only child. - but being mean was out of the question. Siblings could be mean, sure, but she didn't intend to be mean to the siblings she adopted.

Thinking as fast as she possibly could given the circumstances, Pixie tried to come up with something a bit less vague. Though she hadn't been as keen as she'd once been to speak to Chian, Pixie found that, now that her friend was there, she wanted to talk to her.

Maybe things would be better if she could just get what happened out in the open. Get an outsider's opinion on the situation. Gain a new perspective on things because of some advice given. Better still, instead of advice, an explanation of the whats and whys of what had just taken place.

"Wheeler kissed me. Like kiss kissed me," Pixie stammered, trying again to explain what had happened and why she was looking for someone to talk to.

She wasn't sure there were anymore words for what he had done. If such words existed, they were escaping Pixie's upload enhanced brain.

"And..." Chian prompted in an expectant tone.

Pixie shrugged and continued, "I don't know what to do now."

Chian started to laugh again. The sound echoed throughout Pixie's bedroom, bouncing off the walls and making the younger female feel more than a little uncomfortable. The laugh was a knowing sort of laugh; the laugh of someone who knew this was going to happen eventually and had done the "nice" thing by warning her friend about it.

"I hate to say it but I told you so. I told you he's always liked you are more than a friend and it was just a matter of time before something happened. I figured it was going to be him to make the first move," Chian pointed out, her tone still knowing much to Pixie's chagrin.

Getting a handle on herself, Chian decided to take, what she figured was the next logical step and pointed out, "That logical brain of yours can't figure out what to do now, right?"

Pixie gave a simple nod as her answer. That was the be all, end all of her problem. She wasn't sure what to do with all the emotions she was feeling now. It was all a jumble in her mind, taking up space and preventing her from thinking about anything else.

"Well, let's start simply, how did it make you feel?" Chian questioned.

"It was weird at first. I mean, the whole night with Wheeler was weird. There was this sort of awkwardness between us. Things have never been strange between the two of us. We always got along. I don't know why but I was afraid at first but then I wasn't anymore. It felt sort of nice," Pixie answered.

"At least you didn't get it in your little head of yours to smack him or something and it's a good sign you thought it felt nice. What else?" Chian prompted.

"Now I don't know what to do. I mean, I'm all confused. If I knew what to do, I wouldn't have gone to talk to you. This isn't exactly something you expect from someone you thought was just a friend," Pixie replied, sounding both utterly exasperated and totally downtrodden.

She knew it sounded pathetic and sad- Maybe a bit on the harsh side too- but Pixie found herself wishing that she was like the Agents of the Matrix. The Agents were smart but they didn't seem like they had any emotional capacity. Though she knew being able to feel emotions made her human, made her different from the emotionally dead Agents of the Matrix, Pixie, at the moment, wished she was unable to feel anything. It would have made her life, she figured, a whole lot easier.

"Like I said before, as smart as you are, that's how blind you are. How do you feel about Wheeler? I know he likes you and I'm pretty sure you like him. Maybe you'd feel better if you just said it out loud," Chian suggested, trying to get Pixie to understand what had happened.

It might have been easy for a "normal" person to understand what a kiss meant but this was Pixie she was talking to. The younger female was more about understanding things with her head rather than her heart. Wonderful for someone in the medical or scientific field. Not so great for matters of the heart.

Pixie hesitated, unsure of what to say to her friend. It was like trying to untangle a bunch of twisted silk threads. The knots were too tiny, the threads too fine, and the fabric too slippery to be able to accomplish the set task. All she was doing was making a bigger mess out of things.

"He's my friend, one of the best ones I have here. He's always been there to listen to me, even before we came here. Sometimes, I think he'd like me as what I was before all the rebuilding. I know I like him as my friend but, other than that, I don't really know. Maybe I do like him as more of a friend, I think anyway," Pixie babbled.

"That's a start," Chian commented, "I can't do this for you, Pix; you're going to have to do this yourself."

Another small sound from the younger female, the one akin to a mouse being trod over, prompted Chian to add, "I know you're scared of anything and everything related to emotions that impair your logical nature. You can do this, though. You have no choice in the matter. Just tell him how you feel otherwise he's going to think that he's done something wrong. That'll make a bigger mess with that friendship you two have."

"But, what if I can't," Pixie groaned, "what if I make a bigger mess out of things because I'm not good at this sort of thing. I really don't want to hurt Wheeler's feelings and I really don't want to ruin our friendship. I'm at a loss for what to do here. All I know is that I don't want to make anything worse."

Chian frowned, wondering if she was going to have to beat the ideas into Pixie. There was no way someone could be that thick, in denial so deep that she was blind to everything around her. Especially when that someone was as smart as Pixie was. Though they were in different Academy classes, she knew Pixie was smart. She had to be to be spouting off about Plato's Cave at fourteen going on fifteen.

It took a moment but Chian realized what was the problem was. There was one thing that was plaguing Pixie and giving her a hard time understanding what was happening between her and her friend.

Pixie relied on logic and reason to solve every problem she came across. She'd become so use to looking at things through such a lens, that it became second nature to her. Emotional decisions, ones made from the heart or the gut, had no place in her world, it seemed. She was not use to making such decisions.

Well, Chian figured, there was no time like the present to learn.

"All you have to do it speak from the heart. For once, ignore what that brain of yours is telling you. Not everything in the world can be explained by logic, as unpleasant as that is for you to hear," Chian informed her friend.

She ruffled Pixie's hair and yawned widely. It was quite late now.

"Sleep on it, kid. Just make sure to talk to him sooner than later. He's going to think he did something very wrong if you make him wait," Chian told her friend as she left Pixie's bunker.

Alone and emotionally exhausted, Pixie yanked off her boots and wriggled under the covers of her bed. The problem would still be there when she woke up in the morning but, for now, she could pretend they didn't exist.  
For now, she could try and get some sleep. She'd try and sort things out the next day or so.


	12. Your Song

An: Heya everyone! I'm thinking of taking this little bit of this misadventure and calling it a sort of "offshoot" of the rest of the story. Like an interjection into the larger part of the story or something like that. I don't really know…just something I'm thinking about. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do but, have no fear those brave souls who are still out there reading this misadventure, there will be Matrix-y action sooner rather than later and there may even be an appearance of Neo. I promise, though, if Neo does show up, Pixie and her friends won't play a big role in that story. She's just a by-stander, if anything. Anywho, I hope everyone's have a good start to their spring. I went to Opening Day at Shea Stadium (home of the NY Mets until 2009. Then they're going to move into spiffy Citi Field.) and it was a freezing cold but awesome time. There's just something extremely poetic about baseball! Please, if anyone has any input whatsoever about this little misadventure, let me know! I'm interested in hearing whatever anyone has to say!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own The Matrix, The Animatrix, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and in graduate school studying biology. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"My gift is my song

And this one's for you…" (from "Your Song" from Moulin Rouge)

Things in any world- Zion or the Matrix- tended to fall into two main categories in Pixie's mind. There were the things you had to do and the things you didn't have to do. Many simple things could be sorted into her two categories, like eating and sleeping. You had to eat in order to provide the body with the nutrition it needed and you had to sleep because it was necessary to rest your mind. Not doing things you were supposed to do- Even things deemed optional like homework- almost always had negative results. Sure you could choose not to eat but then you would starve. A person could, hypothetically go without sleep but, eventually, one would go mad.

Within the category of things you had to do, there were subcategories. Two, at the moment, stood out in Pixie's still confused mind. There were the things you had to and you liked to do them. For Pixie, and she knew she might have been alone on that fact, learning, and working, training and continuing to expand her repertoire of things she could do within the false reality of the Matrix were things she felt she had to do, given her job.

They were also things she liked doing. She'd always had a deep and abiding enjoyment of learning things and of working hard to learn things- Though for reasons that were beyond her understanding, learning came easy to her. That love for learning extended to her training now, making training something she enjoyed as well.

Since there were things you had to do and you liked to do, the other side of the coin had to exist as well. There were things you had to do and you didn't really want to do them.

It was in the latter category that Pixie's current venture fell squarely into, despite the fact she was quite ashamed it did.

Pixie had taken Chian's words to her the night before to heart. She knew she had to say something to Wheeler, talk to him before he decided he'd done something wrong. The young woman knew that there was a good chance that his kiss had changed their friendship but Pixie didn't want the change to be for the worst. She valued Wheeler's friendship because he was her close friend. He was one of the few friends she had from the Matrix and not even really because, back then, she'd only ever spoken to him in cyberspace.

Whatever the case, she and Wheeler had a kind of closeness between them. Pixie had never, exactly, been popular during her stay in the Matrix and she wasn't really sure what an actual healthy- Not the kind she had with Hawk as that seemed almost parasitic in nature- friendship felt like. Then she got to know a certain scruffy looking boy with a cheery smile that seemed to extend all the way to the bright hazel eyes he had. Pixie figured whatever she once had with Wheeler, whatever was going to change because of the previous night could be classified as a healthy friendship.

It was her musings that kept her company as the young woman wended her way to Wheeler's small home. They were, probably, the only things that were keeping her from turning around and heading back to her own home.

Zion's homes were all behind metallic red doors. The doors reminded Pixie of doors found on submarines, the kinds of doors that separated the compartments on a submarine. Well, what she thought they looked like anyway. Pixie hadn't ever had the occasion to see the inside of a submarine while in the Matrix.

It wasn't so much the shape of the door that gave Pixie pause. It was more the fact that all of the doors were red. If one door was red, then it could have been chalked up to someone making a statement. Two, well, then maybe it was a movement of some kind but it was every single door in the city. Pixie always wondered if it was somehow symbolic, all of the doors being red. Maybe a statement to the machines that lived above them- Despite the fact that the machines never could get into Zion- that they had all either taken the red pill or the result of parents who took the red pill.

Though all of the doors looked relatively identical in appearance, Pixie was able to pick out which door belonged to Wheeler. Now it was easy to see the differences between the doors but back when she was first freed, Pixie always feared getting lost and knocking on the wrong red door.

That was all in the past now as Pixie paused in front of Wheeler's door. She took a few moments, trying to decide if she really wanted to do what she was going to do. She knew she had to but she was afraid of doing it. Part of Pixie was scared that whatever had changed between her and Wheeler was going to ruin their friendship, change the long standing relationship they already had.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out, Pixie reached up a boney knuckled hand and rapped on the red door. She paused, waiting a few moments before knocking once more.

She was about ready to give up and head home- deciding that, possibly, Wheeler wasn't home at the moment- when Pixie heard the door open. A small slit in the heavy door, showing a pair of bright hazel eyes tilted sideway as they tried to see who was knocking. Said bright hazel eyes landed on Pixie, widening when he saw who it actually was.

Wheeler pushed the door open, taking stock of the young woman standing before him. If one hadn't known Pixie, one would think she looked normal. She looked like her normal, energetic self. Wheeler wasn't just a member of the population in Zion, though. He wasn't some random person on the catwalk sidewalk. The scruffy looking young man figured he knew Pixie pretty well, better than some random person in Zion, anyway.

To Wheeler, Pixie looked tired. Tired like she hadn't slept in a good long time. Though she looked like she was a bouncing ball of energy, there was a certain slowness to her movements, and her eyes kept blinking as if she was trying to dispel the feeling of sleep from them. Wheeler was almost sure he knew what had caused her lack of sleep and that made the scruffy young man feel all the worse.

"Hi," Pixie, lamely and awkwardly, offered a greeting.

Wheeler could only offer the same sort of greeting. Already, the two young adults could feel something like tension building between them. The preverbal five hundred pound gorilla was sitting in the corner, staring at them with its primate eyes and waiting to be acknowledged.

"Do you want to come in?" Wheeler offered, "I mean, I don't you think you want everyone out here to know what's going on."

Being one of those people who valued the rare commodity that was her privacy, Pixie nodded and followed Wheeler into his home. Her brandy brown eyes swept around the small space, marveling at how like, yet unlike his home was when compared to hers. The funny thing was that his space was just as neat as her own. Nothing was out of place and everything looked to be well cared for. Pixie didn't know why that surprised her…it just did.

Wheeler flopped into one of the mismatched chairs that surrounded his small, metal table. He gave Pixie a small smile, inviting her to do the same. The young woman knew it was best she sit down and not stand for whatever conversation they were going to have. If she stood there was a good chance there was going to be some pacing and nervous fiddling with her sweater. No, it was best she sit and fiddle with the hem of her battered and faded green sweater under the table.  
"Look," Wheeler started, deciding that he had to speak first and get things out in the open, "I'm really sorry about last night. I never should have done that. It's just that..."

He tailed off, shrugging his shoulders as if that was all he could come up with to end the sentence. Unless he was planning on telling Pixie exactly how he felt about her, there was little else Wheeler could think to say to say to her.

"There's nothing to apologize for. I'm not angry or anything," Pixie pointed out after a very long and almost physically painful pause, "I guess I was just a little shocked, that's all. I mean, I never expected something like that to happen."

Wheeler gave her a brave looking smile, trying to make her comfortable and himself feel better. All night, he tossed and turned trying to reason why he'd kissed her. It wasn't something he'd planned; Wheeler knew that much was true. It was just a spur of the moment, impulse type thing. Not that he didn't want to kiss her- saying that would have been a lie- but he hadn't planned on doing it.

The scruffy looking young man took a deep breath and let it out. He knew he had to do something, anything, before this drove a wedge between himself and Pixie. They had to clear the air between them otherwise it was going to be very hard to stay as close friends. Wheeler knew that he Pixie considered him her "best friend" and he also knew she'd taken it very hard when Hawk- not even a friend but an ally- decided to stop being friendly to her. Causing Pixie to feel that brand of hurt was not something Wheeler was keen on doing.

With that thought in mind, and the fact the climate in his small home was starting to turn tense and chilly, Wheeler plucked up his courage. He made a brave attempt at getting all his thoughts in order before turning to look Pixie in her brandy brown eyes.

"Pixie, I like you," he admitted, his face glowing like the setting sun.

"But you like Aisling and Ngaio and the women on your ship, too," Pixie, suddenly feeling very flustered, pointed out.

She had a funny feeling she knew what Wheeler was going to say and, for some reason, that made her afraid. Not afraid of Wheeler but of his words. It was almost as if she didn't want to hear what Wheeler had to say to her. She liked their friendship but she wasn't sure what would happen if that were to change. Pixie didn't know if it was worth risking her friendship over something that was unknown to her.

"It's not the same kind of thing," Wheeler said, running a hand through his scruffy dirty blond hair, setting it into further disarray, "Aisling, Ngaio and the women I work with are just my friends. Not even when it comes to the women I work with, actually. They have higher rank than I do. I like you as more than a friend."

Though Pixie feared what Wheeler had to say, there was a part of her that was extremely happy. His words made her feel warm inside, almost glad to hear them.

As she tried to sleep the night before, Pixie mulled over her own feelings for Wheeler. Obviously, the kiss implied he had something like feelings for her. She had to work out what feelings she had for him. Pixie knew they were friends; they had that bond between them already. Maybe, in the part of her mind Pixie tried to ignore, she had more than friendly feelings for the scruffy looking young man sitting across from her. Maybe it was high time to ignore her head and listen to her heart.

"I like you, too," Pixie stammered, extremely embarrassed and unsure of herself, "but can we just take things slowly? I guess after last night's little display, you can see I'm not exactly aces with all this stuff."

A thousand watt smile spread across Wheeler's face. Pixie almost wished she had her Matrix sunglasses with her to protect her eyes from the glare of that smile. It was the brightest smile she'd ever had the occasion to see. Wheeler had one of those smiles that could not only light up his face but his eyes as well.

It seemed strange but Pixie found herself smiling as well. Chian had been right; getting the words out there had made her feel better. Now that Wheeler knew how she felt and she knew how he felt, it was like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. The gorilla that had been sitting in the room took his leave and went to go bother someone else. Things felt like they'd gone back to normal.

"Whatever you want to do, Pix. I'm just glad you feel that way. I was really afraid I'd scared you off and you were never going to speak to me or that you thought I was like Hawk or something," Wheeler responded.

Pixie furrowed her forehead. That was, most definitely, unexpected. In her own fears and uncertainties about what had taken place the night before, Pixie hadn't considered Wheeler's feelings. She felt badly about not doing so now. This whole thing might have been just as hard for him as it had been for her but to compare himself to Hawk…well, that seemed a bit of a stretch. In her mind, Hawk and Wheeler were two very different people.

"You and Hawk aren't even remotely alike. That's like comparing apples and oranges. You could never be someone like him, even if you tried. You don't have that in you as far as I can see," Pixie commented.

Relief washed over the scruffy young man's red face, and he pointed out, "That's good to know. I was worried you'd put me in the same category as Hawk. I'd never hurt you like he did. We're friends first and nothing's going to change that part."

Pixie was extremely glad Wheeler was still considering them friends before anything else. His friendship, the fact she knew she always had him to turn to, was important to her. An unbidden thought, stray and wandering in her head, occurred to Pixie. Wheeler could say they were friends but something had changed between them.

Before she could run the thought through her mental filters, the young woman asked, "Does this make us a couple?"

Wheeler shrugged his shoulders- something Pixie hadn't expected him to do- and answered, "Do you want to be?"

It was Pixie's turn to shrug. It was enough that she'd surprised herself with her question. That was something she hadn't expected herself to ask. Still, she knew she to give that question some thought. It seemed like it was what Wheeler wanted- otherwise he wouldn't have kissed her and they wouldn't have been having this conversation- and part of her liked the idea. It seemed like a good thing to have someone to turn to, other than her adopted family and her friends. Someone who was still her friend but not because they were something more.

"Can we settle for calling ourselves better than best friends or something? The word 'couple' kind of makes me nervous," Pixie said.

"Done. We can just be better than best friends. I kind of like that idea anyway. Being a couple sounds- I don't know. - too old fashioned or anything," Wheeler concurred, wearing another very bright smile.

Pixie put her head down on Wheeler's table, burying her head within her arms. The way she was shaking Wheeler thought she has started to cry. He was afraid he had said something, done something very wrong. In his mind, things seemed to be going well- Better than he expected anyway. - so he couldn't quite understand what was wrong with his friend. "Are you ok, Pix?" he asked gingerly, hesitant to push the hair away the sides of her head and arms to get a look at what was going on.  
A few beats passed before Pixie could pick her head up and tell Wheeler, "I'm fine, really"  
Wheeler almost shook his head, more because he felt a bit stupid and not because of anything Pixie had done. She hadn't burst into tears or anything like that. She'd started to laugh and she hadn't wanted him to see it.  
"I'm not laughing at you," Pixie explained, wiping a laugher forced tear from her eye, "I'm laughing at me. I can't believe I'm talking about this stuff. It's so...so"  
"Unexpected? Unlike you?" Wheeler offered with a knowing smile.  
Pixie smiled and nodded, indicating both answers. Wheeler was one of the few people who knew stories about her past in the Matrix. It was just a small fraction of her previous life but it was enough for him to figure out certain things about her. Combining that with certain things he knew about her from actually getting to know her, Wheeler was able to read her pretty well.

Truthfully, Wheeler was surprised he was talking about this sort of thing. In the small town he called home, once upon a time, Wheeler knew that falling in love was done by rote. Everyone was sort of expected to marry his or her high school sweetheart or, at the very least, someone they knew from school. It was a talking point- Wheeler remembered his Matrix mother, Faye, and her friends twittering like birds over the fact some local girl had gone and married someone from outside their town.- when that didn't happen.

Wheeler had been fifteen when he left his life, his family, and his town and became a member of Zion's population. As a pitcher for his local high school's team as well as for his town's team, he knew he garnered some interest. Interest he wasn't really interested in, frankly. He didn't want to be like his father who, stuck with a resentful woman like his mother.

A lot of his new life in Zion had been unexpected. Things happened that he hadn't expected to happen. Among them was making actual friends with Pixie. It was strange to meet girls who didn't have any scheming ideas in the backs of their heads. There was no pretense in their friendship other than them being friends. Pixie wasn't doing any scheming for the future.

Maybe that was what catalyzed all of his feelings towards Pixie. She was what she was, nothing more and nothing less. Wheeler was almost sure he didn't know everything about her- just as she didn't know everything about him- but there was no pretense to their friendship. They were friends because they were friends. That was that.  
"I guess that's a good way of putting it. I want to get use to this, though, I like this," Pixie told Wheeler, as her smile stayed on her face.  
Pixie was glad that the comfort between them, once turned into awkward silence when talking face to face, had returned. Things appeared to be back to the way the use to be. That was an inaccurate statement, she knew. Nothing was going to be the same between them. Things would go back to normal for them but it was a different kind of normal. This was normal for them as "better than best friends"  
"What do you want to do today?" Pixie asked Wheeler, feeling like it would be a good day if she got to stay with Wheeler.

Before long they'd both be out on their own separate ships. Spending time with one's friends was always a premium whenever they were all home together. No one ever knew if it was going to be the last time that was going to happen. Pixie wasn't one to think so fatally but she knew it was truth. It was part and parcel of their jobs.

It didn't mean she had to give in to such thoughts. No, she stood by what she's said before starting her job. They'd- Her and her little circle of friends- would all see the end of this conflict together. No one was dying.  
"So long as I don't have to train and I get solid food, we can do anything you want to do," Wheeler answered, "I'm good as long as I get to spend time with you."

Pixie blushed but, then, Wheeler was blushing too. Maybe nothing had changed after all.


	13. Teardrop

AN: First things first, I'm really sorry about these updates not being as frequent as I'd like to be. I've been trying to balance like a million things and I'm not having an easy time doing it. See, I'm preparing to take my Master's Exam in June and I have lots of studying to do BUT my little sister dumped all of her homework on me as well. Apparently, her being able to hang out with her friends is more important than her homework and it's up to me to keep her academic head above water. Just to add insult to injury, my computer decided to crash over the weekend, meaning I had to retype both of our papers. Ah well…Now, the second thing! This is the last chapter of this story. I decided that this is going to be a short, sort of offshoot of the larger misadventure that's going on here. I hope that's alright with anyone out there still reading this. Anywho, please keep an eye out for the next part of this story! I promise there'll be Matrix-y fun and, maybe, an appearance by the One!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own The Matrix, The Animatrix, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and in graduate school studying biology. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"Love, love is a verb

Love is a doing word

Fearless on my breath

Gentle impulsion

Shakes me makes me lighter

Fearless on my breath…" (from "Teardrop" by Massive Attack)

"You know," Pixie commented, looking around at where her walk with Wheeler had taken the two of them, "I've never been much for playing catch. Come to think of it, I don't ever really remember playing catch with anyone."

Their walk- Since neither of them could think of any one specific thing they both wanted to do. Neither wanted to shop nor were the hungry. Training was out of the question since that dominated their time when they worked. -had taken them to the last place in Zion Pixie had thought of. Last only because she rarely had the occasion to go there. She'd been there before, true, but she rarely ever made it a point to go there recently. It just struck her as more than a little odd, given the circumstances.

Their walk had taken them to what passed for a park in Zion.

It was a far cry from the parks Pixie knew of- The ones with trees and grass. Green islands in the middle of the metal and glass jungle she called home. – but they still called it a park. The park was made up of long stretches of dirt split down its center and branching into many directions with cobblestoned paths. Here and there along the paths were metal park benches. There was even a playground- Its equipment made of metal and stone- for the smaller members of Zion's population. Pixie had spent some time in that part of Zion's park when she was living with Rain and Eli was younger. She, Aisling, and Adoh use to take the small boy to the playground when they were watching him.

How she and Wheeler wound up in the park was mystery but it wasn't the one she was focusing on. No, the mystery she was focusing on was just how she and Wheeler wound up playing catch.

Before they left Wheeler's home, the boy had picked up something off of his table and shoved it in his pocket. He'd done it so swiftly that Pixie wasn't able to discern what the object was. She'd shrugged it off and the two of them had gone on their merry way. Well, it wasn't really their merry way but the point was about the say. Pixie had paid the strange object no mind and they'd gone on their way into the body of Zion.

It wasn't until they arrived at the park that Wheeler showed her what he'd taken off of his table. It was a roughly made baseball. A far cry, he explained, from the baseballs he use to use. The ones that were covered with white leather and had bright red stitching. This one was made of some sort of rough gray cloth pulled tightly over a rubber core. The stitching was a bit heavier than the baseballs he use to use but not by much.

"You've never played catch before, Pix?" Wheeler blurted, sounding rather stunned as he caught her soft toss, "I don't remember a time before I was playing catch with my dad. It was something we did at least once a day when I was a kid."

Pixie shrugged, as she caught the ball Wheeler, carefully, tossed in her general direction. Her answer was what it was. She'd never played catch with anyone mostly because she'd never had the opportunity. It wasn't something she would have been able to do during her stay in the Matrix.

As it was, she felt silly playing catch with Wheeler. She knew that baseball was very important to Wheeler and it was what he'd decided was the reason he'd gotten out of the Matrix. It was the sport he enjoyed most of all and something she knew he missed since there was no regular baseball in Zion. There were no leagues or anything like that. Just pick up games one had to be lucky enough to get involved in. Though Pixie figured that Wheeler was probably one person everyone wanted on their team.

She also figured that he was holding back on just how hard he was throwing to her now. His tosses too her was of the soft, underhanded variety. They weren't anything like the pitches she knew he had to throw when he was a boy in the Matrix. Those had to be far harder than what he was throwing to her now.

Tossing the ball back to Wheeler- Pixie had decided that he was probably going to tell her she threw like a girl sooner rather than alter- Pixie put in, "I just never had the right circumstances, I guess. Didn't know anyone who would want to play catch with me."

Wheeler caught Pixie's soft little lob and smiled. He played catch often with the man the Matrix told him was his father but it hadn't been a fun activity for quite some time. His father had made him play catch every time he- He being his father- thought he had a bad start. It was around that time that Wheeler stopped enjoying the simple act of tossing a baseball between two people.

This was the first time in a long time that Wheeler found himself enjoying the game of catch. There was no pressure here, no call to impress. It was just him and Pixie tossing a baseball between them and talking while doing it. Not a big deal at all.

"That's too bad," Wheeler pointed out, tossing the ball from hand to hand before throwing it back to Pixie, "It's a fun game to play. Great way to pass the time on a lazy day. At least, for me it was."

"How come you sound like you don't mean that?" Pixie asked, making an attempt to return the ball as hard as she possibly could.

The ball, much to her delight, sailed a bit farther than her last making Wheeler take a few steps backwards in order to catch it. Wheeler seemed to enjoy the fact she made him chase the ball because he as laughing as he stepped back a bit to catch it. At least, in her mind, she wanted to show him that she didn't throw like a girl. Pixie was well aware of the fact she'd never throw as hard as he could but that didn't stop her from trying to.

Wheeler paused and tossed the ball from hand to hand for a moment before, again, softly throwing it in Pixie's direction. He wasn't using kid gloves or anything on her nor was he tossing the ball softly because he figured she was a girl and she was incapable of playing sports. It was more like he knew that he'd hurt her if he threw to her at his full strength. The only person who'd ever been able to catch him without hurting himself was a boy named Ben, his catcher during his stay in the Matrix.

Watching Pixie try and line herself up to catch said ball, Wheeler answered, "I'm having fun now but this game use to not be fun for me. Just something from the Matrix. Don't worry about it. Like I said, this is the most fun I've had in weeks."

"Your dad, right?" Pixie asked as the ball hit the dirt just next to her, making her frown, "You said something about your dad and him being a former baseball player once before."

Pixie picked up the ball and looked at it, her frown deepening. She'd never been really athletic but that wasn't her fault. Circumstance in the Matrix prevented her from being able to play sports or do anything like that. She was better now but, apparently, catching baseballs was still not her thing.

The strange thing was that Pixie didn't find this fact frustrating. Usually when she couldn't do something or had trouble doing something- as in the case of her learning how to bend the Matrix so she could perform what she thought were amazing feats- it would frustrate Pixie to no bitter end. She'd continue to push herself until she was able to do whatever it was she set her mind to. In this case, though, she wasn't annoyed. She was perfectly alright with the fact Wheeler was better with the whole throwing and catching thing than she was.

The ball made a lazy arc through the air, sailing towards Wheeler's waiting hands. He caught the sphere shaped object, putting it in his pocket and gesturing for Pixie to, as his coach use to call it, "bring it in"

For her part, Pixie wasn't sure why Wheeler was ending their little game but she knew he had a reason. She jogged the short distance between the two of them, coming to a stop and kicking up some dirt, at Wheeler's side.

"What's wrong?" she asked, concerned that something had happened to Wheeler's arm during the course of their game.

"Nothing," the scruffy looking young man answered, looping an arm around Pixie's rather narrow shoulders, "come on, let's go find someplace to sit."

The pair walked a short distance, finding a free bench near the park's playground. The playground struck Pixie as being almost as odd as the idea of a park in Zion, itself. There was just something so completely and utterly normal- like Matrix normal- about it. For some reason, that had always unnerved Pixie. She guessed it was because it was something she hadn't expected to see in the far flung future she called home.

At the moment, the fence that surrounded the playground and separated it from the rest of the park was lined by a few older looking women and a few men. The equipment- the usual mix of slides, swings, monkey bars and other things- was being taken advantage of by a mix of Zion born and Pod Born kids. Their shouts were loud enough to fill the air but not so loud that they were painful to the ear.

"You were right," Wheeler pointed out, speaking to Pixie, "The whole catch thing wasn't fun because of my dad. He just took all the fun out of the game but I guess I owe him."

"What do you mean?" Pixie, curiously asked.

She remembered the stories Wheeler use to tell her about the man the Matrix said was his father. Pixie often wondered if there were any real blood relations in Matrix families or was it just random individuals put together because it was easier for the Machines that way. Aisling had once said that her query was weird, given the fact she was an orphan in the Matrix. Whatever the case was- whether or not they were actual blood relations- the point was still the same in this case. The man the Matrix had told Wheeler was his father was a failed pitcher. Something about him tearing his rotator cuff when he was a minor leaguer in the Boston Red Sox farm system and him not being able to pitch quite the same ever again. Because his dream had failed, he'd pushed all of his hopes on his young son who showed the same talent.

That boy was Wheeler.

"If my dad hadn't driven me insane about pitching, then I would have never gotten into hacking and I would have never found the truth," Wheeler answered, "I would have never found myself here and I would have never gotten the chance to meet you."

Nodding his head as if he was deciding something, Wheeler added, "I owe him for getting me here, at least."

Pixie laughed, a sound that was both nervous and happy. She only wished she had something to say like that. Some reason other than her own desire to escape her death as a catalyst to get out of the Matrix.

She and Wheeler had shared stories about their past lives- including their given names but that was a moot point since they didn't use those anymore- and Pixie had mentioned things about her own past. She just happened to leave out the parts about her dying. All Wheeler knew was that she was a very sickly person in the Matrix and nothing else. Pixie hadn't said anything to him because she didn't want him to feel sorry for her, the very same reason she failed to say anything to Hawk back when they were living in the orphanage.

"I didn't know my parents," she told Wheeler, stating it as if it was a given fact, "I never met my real father so I don't know if I have to thank him for anything. If anything, I guess I'd have to thank Hawk for getting me into the hacking thing."

"I'll make you a deal, Pix," Wheeler broached, "I won't thank my dad if you don't thank Hawk. Hawk doesn't deserve your thanks. You got yourself out of the Matrix with your smarts."

A pink blush covered Pixie's cheeks at Wheeler's words. Her own smarts, in her opinion, could be called into question at any time. She figured she wasn't as smart as she came off to people.

"Whatever got me out; I'm just glad it did. Coming here earned me a new lease on life. I got to do things I never thought I'd be doing," she said, elusively.

The look Wheeler was giving her, the fact she knew Wheeler was the type who would listen to her made Pixie decide to take her answer a bit further. She wasn't entirely sure why she decided to- Since Pixie had avoided telling anyone since her arrival in Zion- but she felt she had to. It was the honest thing to do.

With a sigh, Pixie told Wheeler the whole truth of her situation before her unplugging. It was the Cliffs Notes version to be sure but she still admitted everything to him. The entire truth of her situation in the Matrix, right down to the fact that if she hadn't taken the red pill, hadn't been given the choice when she did there was a good chance she wouldn't have lived to see her sixteenth birthday.

"That's why all of this is so new to me," she admitted, ending her tale, "I just never expected to be able to do any of this because of what I was told. I'm glad I took the red pill and I'm glad to have met you on this side of

the looking glass."  
Wheeler was stunned into silence. He, like all of their friends, knew that Pixie had been sickly in the Matrix. She'd told them stories about her many hospital visits but she'd never told anyone about her being that sick. She'd never mentioned that she was going to die.

"Why didn't you say anything before, Pix?" Wheeler asked, once he found his voice again.

Pixie shrugged and answered, "I just didn't want to be treated differently, you know. I didn't want anyone to feel bad for me and treat me different. Please, don't tell anyone I told you. I…I…still don't want to tell them yet."

"Your secret's safe with me," Wheeler stated, "and that's a promise."

Pixie opened her mouth to say something else when her scruffy looking friend added, "And I promise I won't treat you any differently either."

After leaving the park, heading off to get something to eat, Pixie and Wheeler spent the day wandering around Zion, just talking about life, liberty, and what things were like for them while living in the Matrix. It was late when Wheeler brought Pixie back to her home. The dimming of the lights that signaled nighttime in Zion had occurred hours earlier but neither of them paid it any mind. They didn't know when they'd both be in Zion together again and, besides, they'd run into Aisling, Adoh, Ngaio and Conall. That had started a whole new round of fun.

She allowed Wheeler to hold her hand the whole way back, something she wouldn't have normally allowed anyone to do. Her hands were her own and no one else's but she had to make an exception for Wheeler. She liked the fact it made her feel all warm and fuzzy when he did.

There were no nerves to deal with when they arrived at her door. He gave her a small kiss on the lips and laughed when he saw Pixie's cheeks tinge red.

"I have to get use to this," Pixie mused, waving good bye to her friend and heading back into her home.

That was one self-made promise Pixie had every intention of keeping.


End file.
